Escape From Me
by Haleine Delail
Summary: After a harrowing experience on the planet Asmei, Martha Jones finds that she doesn't feel quite herself. The Doctor can find nothing physically wrong with her, but some familiar faces come to the rescue, and offer to put things right. Can the Doctor let go long enough for them to help her? Can they be trusted? And what does Martha have to lose if they can't?
1. Prologue

**Back to it! The Doctor Who world feels like home to me, hokey as it seems, and even though I love branching out into other fandoms, there is nothing like writing for my favorite Time Lord (and his lovely, lovelorn companion). **

**For the first time ever, I am working on a story that is a team effort, a collaboration, a meeting of the minds! The idea/premise for this story is solely that of my good friend Miggs, who has been so nice in turning the actual fun part over to me, and letting me run with it, and offering her wisdom along the way. I am soooo looking forward to this journey! I usually find that I wind up writing a completely different story than I set out to write, and it will be so interesting to see what happens here, given that my writer's conscience is currently sort of answering to someone else.**

**As such, this story starts from scratch. It is a stand-alone, not associated with any of my others, which I'm finding very freeing! There is something to be said for sticking to canon, even if it's frustrating!**

**So I hope you enjoy the ride!**

* * *

**Prologue**

President Bouthilette Hadran stood on the balcony of the Presidential Palace and watched as ship after ship after ship blasted away from this, her beloved planet, never to return. She was comforted that the ships were each carrying at least fifteen thousand inhabitants, and that so many of her subjects would be safe. But that comfort was only momentary, as another wave of nausea shot through her, a common occurrence over the last few weeks, as the citizens of the planet Asmei had had no choice but to evacuate.

"Madame President," said her aide, the very worthy Ives Mitke. "You should know… according to the ships' manifests, forty-eight million, seven-hundred-twenty-one thousand, four-hundred and six individuals are sleighted to leave the Western sector of the planet. Including us, the clergy, the science conglomerate, the prisoners from Mount Akesi, hospital patients, and the children from that school way out in the mountains that got forgotten."

Hadran closed her eyes for a few seconds, and whispered. "I know."

Ives continued, "That leaves approximately half a million souls left behind."

She repeated, "I know."

"Are we going to do anything about them?" asked Ives.

"I don't know," she told him. "If I knew what to do in a crisis this size, we wouldn't have to evacuate."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't do that to yourself. You know you can't be expected to save the planet on your own."

She sighed, watching yet another wave of evacuation ships leave the atmosphere. "I can't even save _this_ half of the planet, the half I was elected to protect."

"You _did _protect us. You called in the militia, you asked those who could be useful to hang back… you're not a god. You can't do everything, so you delegated. It's what a good leader does."

There was a long silence as Hadran continued to stare at the sky. "I suppose," she said finally. "Thanks, Ives."

"Madame President?" a voice said from behind her. It was her military advisor.

"Yes?"

"Major Fendono is prepared to give her report."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," the President promised.

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

"All right, I need everyone seated," Major Fendono called out. "Quickly, please."

The sombre crowd took their seats in the small auditorium, relatively quickly. The Major paced back and forth in front of a lit-up screen, with moving images. Once each person, including the President and her aides, had found their places, she began to speak.

"As you know, we have perhaps thirty-six hours to go," she said. "That's two days before life as we know it is obliterated. Your President Hadran, and President Kala of the Eastern Sector, have done everything they can. It was a wise idea to call in our militia – we have the strongest battle cruisers and the fastest fighter jets in the galaxy. We have the best-trained infiltration and combat units this side of the Aedelek Star Field. But we have all but swarmed the neighbouring planet, to no avail."

There was a low murmur in the room. Everyone knew she was right, but they had been hoping she had called them into the conference for good news.

She continued. "The science conglomerates from both hemispheres have stayed behind in the wake of mass exodus, to measure the gravitational changes, to monitor the ground quakes, see if there's anything to be done about the boiling from the inner reaches of the planet. They have learned much. They have learned that the gravitational pull of the planet is letting go, the ground quakes do not originate from inside the planet, and the boiling is increasing at an exponential rate. And there is nothing that can be done about any of those things in the next two days."

Another murmur fell over the room, and then died out.

"And your President, and President Kala, have been so kind as to ask the clergy cells to stay behind, the gardners, cultivators of your planet and your souls, in order to provide comfort, and spiritual reassurance both to you, and to the planet itself. This is a lovely gesture, and helpful, but not even the gardening priests and priestesses can save your beloved Asmei now."

A man stood up from the crowd. "Erm, hi, Senator Hanni Olfang from the Green Bog Territory. Did you just call us all here to tell us that there's no hope?"

"On the contrary, Senator Olfang. Because there's one thing we haven't tried," said Major Fendono.

She turned and touched the screen behind her. Seven faces appeared.

"You see here seven faces, my friends. Seven different visages of men, seemingly of different ages and ilks, and to look at them, from different eras of history," she said. "We have followed records across time and space and found these images linked with stories of great feats of strength. Time and again, the Daleks were dispatched, Cybermen defeated, Sontarans ran away with their tails between their legs, all courtesy of these men, and we wondered : do these men belong to a secret agency? A super army? The answer is: no, they don't."

The Major took a pregnant pause for effect.

"These faces all belong to one man, and all of these awesome feats can be attributed to him. He is our hope, my dear Asmeians."

There was a murmur, and Major Fendono did not take time to wait for it to subside.

"We know a great deal about him, and yet not enough. We know that he is born of a regenerating race, and that these seven faces do not comprise the full length of his life. We don't know how many different faces he has had, and we do not know in which order these faces appear. We know that he is the only one of his species in the universe, and that he has strong ties to actual humankind and the original, now-defunct planet Earth, so our time is not really _his _time. But it does not matter – this man will reach us from across the ages."

"How do we acquire him?" someone asked from the crowd.

"It's already done – he is on his way."

"Who is he?"

"No one knows," said the Major with a shrug. "He simply calls himself the Doctor."


	2. Despair

**Despair**

The TARDIS gears rang out in the air like great grinding bells. Martha Jones stood in front of her bathroom mirror and inspected herself, back in her own twenty-first century clothes. All of her personal effects had been trapped inside the TARDIS for three months while she and the Doctor had been cooling their heels in 1969, waiting for Sally Sparrow to deliver the vessel to them.

But now, she had her trusty blue jeans back, and her favourite lavendar v-neck tank top, and her red leather jacket. She was not confined to shift dresses and chunky heels even when the temperature was Below Ridiculous, and she didn't have to pretend to be less than she was, in order to conform to the times.

She stepped out of the bathroom, and back into her bedroom, which she had missed… in spite of the fact that it was only on loan to her from the TARDIS, and wasn't _really_ hers anyway. It was near enough. But when she looked at the door and took a step forward to go through it, out into the hall, then to the console room where the Doctor would be waiting, she stopped short, and sighed. Something sank inside of her then, because she was just now allowing herself to acknowledge something.

The stint in 1969 had been pure misery.

She had not permitted that thought to enter her mind at the time, because the Doctor didn't know how long it would be before they could leave, and she knew if she let herself feel miserable, she wouldn't be able to do her job, or live each day, or be any kind of companion to the Doctor. But there it was. She had been miserable. And truth be told, she couldn't really see life back in the TARDIS solving the problem.

Because as much as she was now back in her own clothes, not in the shifts, sleeping in her own bed, not in an uncomfortable hide-a-bed with out-of-control springs, and as much as she was now free to be as clever as she could be, and not a submissive black woman… she still didn't have the one thing she needed more than anything else: him.

What had started out as a crush had turned to plain and simple unrequited love long ago. She had had to take her love and pack it into a little box inside, and tend it very carefully so as not to let it out. And in 1913, unrequited love had turned into an almost intolerable confinement of emotion, a feeling not only of love, but of simple _friendship_ that had to be pressed down into that little box and expressed only as 'yes sir, no sir.' But in 1969, that box got compressed even more, and in the worst way. They had been forced to feign marriage in order to find a place to live, and also to share a bed. And there, love, friendship and lust pressed themselves into a black hole, waiting to explode at any moment and create a whole new universe of epic problems for both of them, through which even the TARDIS could not pass. He was so close, and yet so far…

And now back in the TARDIS, sure, she had room to breathe again. She had a little corner here in her room that she could call her own and use for crying and wringing her hands and and writing in a journal and whatever other tortured, lovesick emoting she wanted to do… but the damage to her soul had been done. That love and friendship had been pressed into that black hole, and even if it was okay to bring it out now, it was distorted, and might never be the same again.

She wanted him, loved him, couldn't breathe when she thought of being without him… but a part of her now couldn't stand the sight of him. Her fantasies ran to the usual places, but now with an extra twist of violence. And she had absolutely _no_ bloody idea what to do with _that_.

She stood, staring at the door, gathering the courage to go through it, when a knock came.

It's not like there were a myriad of people living within the TARDIS who could be rapping on her door, and yet, his voice rang out, "Martha, it's me."

"Yeah, I got that," she said as she opened it.

And almost immediately she hated him. Seeing him brought over her a rush of something fierce, even though it had only been eight hours since he had hugged her good night and she'd gone off to her room to sleep. And yet, there it was, staring back at her in its tall, thin, well-dressed, well-coiffed, perfectly unshaven way: the distraction of those deep brown eyes peering through to her very soul. Then, there were the eyebrows and lips, just crooked enough to completely derail her composure for about five seconds.

"We have to go," he said, leaning forward to take her hand, snapping out of her momentary reverie.

"Okay," she said, very easily falling back into the routine of Doctor/Companion Adventure. She pulled the door shut as he pulled her down the corridor. "Have we landed somewhere?"

"Yes, we are on the planet Asmei," he said.

"Let me guess: they're in trouble."

* * *

They stepped straight out of the TARDIS into a large conference room, an entire wall of which was covered with a screen of various moving images, most of which Martha could not understand. There were at least fifty humanoids in the room, some with human-like faces, some with brightly-coloured skin, some of whom were sitting at the conference table, but most of whom were standing.

"Doctor, welcome to Asmei," a woman said from one end of the room. Some of the standing folks stepped aside and allowed her to march forward for a handshake with the Doctor.

He obliged her, and then asked, "Major Fendono?"

"Yes, Doctor," she replied. "I am delighted to meet you. On behalf of President Hadran and the committee here, I'd like to express our deepest gratitude for your presence."

"Yeah, well, it's what I do," he said, rocking back on his heels, and shoving his hands in his pocket. "By the way, since you didn't ask, this is my friend Martha Jones."

Fendono looked Martha over. "What is her rank?"

"Her rank?"

"Yes, her credentials to be here."

"I say she gets to be here, those are her credentials," the Doctor snapped. "Now, on the comm, you said something about a planet in peril?"

Major Fendono was taken off-guard. "Yes, of course. Please follow me."

She led him to the head of the table and gestured for him to sit. Then she tapped the gentleman in the next seat over on the shoulder, and said, "Make some room for Miss Jones, Senator Breffle."

The man stood up and Martha took his place.

The lights in the room went down, and another woman stood front of the screen. "Good afternoon, Doctor, Miss Jones. I am Bouthilette Hadran, President of the Western Sector of Asmei. Please allow me to debrief you."

The image of a planet popped up on the far left side of the wall screen. "This is our great and noble planet, Asmei. She is over nineteen billion years old, and her origin is deeply entangled not only with that of our galaxy, but also with that of a male planet, neighbouring us."

"Pardon me, did you say a _male_ planet?" Martha asked.

"Yes," said the President. "We are proud to say that Asmei is a sentient planet, with almost a literal brain a her core."

The Doctor leaned in Martha's direction and whispered, "All sentient planets have a consciousness gender: masculine, feminine, neuter."

"As I was saying," continued the President. "Our planet and neighbouring Liskobe are deeply entwined, and in the dark times, they were considered a Sentient Singular."

Martha looked at the Doctor.

He leaned over. "They were a couple."

"The two planets? They were like… married?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"When the storms on Liskobe came, Asmei had no choice but to sever her sentient ties with her mate, with every intention of returning to him. But the damage was done, and Liskobe was left wounded," Hadran explained.

"I see," the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair. "How long ago was this?"

"Not long," said the President. "Just a few million years. Perhaps six or seven million. No one knows for sure. The point is, Asmei and Liskobe have not had an amicable relationship since then. Of course it goes without saying that the people who inhabit these planets have been at war off and on since the split."

"Ah," the Doctor nodded. "Mum and dad are fighting, turning the kids against each other."

"Recently, the unscrupulous Liskobians have discovered a way to siphon off our waves of Favurval enzyme, the element in our atmosphere that keeps the molten mantle of the planet from burning from the inside out and exploding into a thousand directions of deep space. The median temperature of the planet is currently on the rise, and we think we have about thirty hours before all is lost."

"Well then, we'd better get cracking," the Doctor said, getting to his feet and clapping loudly. "I've just got a few questions."

"All right."

"First, what is _she _doing here?" he asked, indicating Major Fendono. He looked her up and down. "That uniform doesn't even come from this galaxy."

"My militia and I were called in when the crisis first began two weeks ago," she answered. "We spent the first week in a full frontal attack on the Liskobians, but all it did was… well…"

"Piss them off?" asked the Doctor. "Well, blimey, fancy that – smacking them over the head didn't work to make peace."

"Doctor…"

"What about that lot, there?" he interrupted, indicating the gallery full of people. "Shouldn't you all have been on a big space bus off this rock, say, thirteen days ago?"

There was a collective gasp. "Doctor!" a man exclaimed, getting to his feet. He was wearing a pair of brown overalls, and a black turtleneck with the insignia of a green leaf at the throat. "That is blasphemous! How dare you refer to our beloved Asmei as a _rock_."

The Doctor studied the man, and conceded, "I'm sorry – I misspoke. And you are?"

"He's a brother from our Cultivation Order," the President replied on the man's behalf. "They are clergy. They insisted on staying."

"He's a gardener?" the Doctor asked with a smile. "The gardeners are clergy, that's fantastic!"

"Yes, well…" said the President. "As for getting off the planet, it's not been easy for everyone. The very wealthiest of our citizens, at least in this sector, of course, had first advantage at securing seats on the exiting coaches."

"How's that?" the Doctor asked.

"It's the way our transit system is set up," the President replied. "The computer network was overloaded with requests to leave and large payments, before anyone could stop it happening."

"So the poorer folk will have to stay behind and get blown up?" Martha asked, getting to her feet beside the Doctor.

"I'm afraid…" the President began.

"Do not say, _I'm afraid so_," the Doctor warned her. "Don't even think it. Because the first thing I'm going to is try to find a way to make the Liskobians stop siphoning off the Favurval enzyme. And failing that, we're going to get everyone – and I mean _everyone_ – the hell out of here."


	3. Countdown

**Countdown**

In a large, official-looking room full of control panels, computers, machines that measured things and the like, the Doctor stood with a comm device to his ear. In front of him was an amalgam of the finest minds on the planet at the moment: President Hadran and Ives, her aide, Major Fendono, Brother Marigold from the Cultivation Order, two senators, three of the top scientists from the Conglomerate, and Martha Jones. They all watched in wonder as the Doctor spoke to the Liskobians in their own language.

Though, to Martha, it all sounded like English.

The Doctor's jaw dropped. "Yeah, well, same to you!" he said into the comm device. Then he hung up the receiver and put it back on the hook with fluorish. "Filthy mouth." he muttered.

"What did they say?" the President asked uselessly.

"Oh, they're right keen on making peace," the Doctor said, irritatedly. "They're going to stop the siphoning right now, and start pumping in happy gas, just to make everyone start singing with joy. Mm-hm."

The President crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "Doctor, please."

"They said they're not going to stop siphoning, and that they are glad to see the end of Asmei, and hope you all rot. They also had some choice words concerning Asmei's immediate female ancestor," he reported. "But I wouldn't want to repeat it in front of Brother Marigold."

"The planet has ancestors?" asked Martha.

"Only spiritually speaking," he told her. Then he looked about the room. "Okay then, plan B."

He dashed over to a monitor, and began turning dials, and watching lines move across the screen. When the lines slowed down, they became something like a plot graph, and the Doctor said, "Boy, the level of crude fumes in the atmosphere is through the roof. It's a wonder we're not being poisoned."

"We probably are," said one of the scientists. "In about three days, at this rate, our lungs would start to atrophy. If we _had_ three days."

"I'm sorry, but without the enzyme to counteract it, at this rate, even if we could stop the planet exploding, the atmosphere would kill everyone within a week," the Doctor told them, without a lot of tenderness.

"Please, Doctor, isn't there _anything_ you can do?" Major Fendono pleaded.

"Major, it would be like playing whack-a-mole. If we neutralize the magma beneath the crust of the planet, the atmosphere will kill us. If we concentrate first on the atmosphere, the tectonic plate-shifting that's bound to happen, even if we are able to restore Favurval to the air, would swallow us up. If we survive that, then, I don't know, the wild dogs that have taken over the abandoned cities would get us. If we had a month and a few thousand scientists, then maybe we'd have a shot. But as it is… ladies and gentlemen, I don't say this often, but your planet is doomed," he announced.

Martha looked about, and could feel the palpable sadness permeating the air.

"Doctor," she encouraged, gesturing with her head toward the brave souls, many of whom were now hugging and crying.

"I'm sorry," he said, now with some tenderness. "I'm so sorry. Believe me, if there were anything I could do to save Asmei, then I would."

"Well, that's it, then," the President muttered, a strain in her voice.

"Oi!" the Doctor said the gloomy room. "The planet is doomed, but that doen't mean that _you_ are doomed! Remember what I said about getting everyone out of here? I bloody well meant it! Madame President, do you have an abandoned shipyard somewhere?"

"Of course, out in the Reterro Lands," she replied.

"Wait, Doctor," said the Major. "I was given to understand that you have a spaceship with infinite space inside. Couldn't they all just hitch a ride with you?"

He smiled. "Yes, but why would you do that when given the circumstances, you're perfectly capable of saving yourselves? You know the system, how and where to go, and what to do when you get there, yeah? These people have had a contingency plan for this sort of planetary crisis for millions of years."

"Yes," the Major replied. "I suppose they have."

"Then I would just be in the way. So, Brother Marigold, your gardeners just became mechanics," he said. "You cultivate life through your planet… how about _saving_ lives _on behalf of_ your planet? Follow me!"

* * *

Within an hour, the Doctor had the entire Cultivation Order of this sector of the planet, were out at the shipyards. They were searching through the debris, told to report back to the Doctor on any vehicle that looked like it might have something resembling an intact computer system.

The President was hard at work with her aides trying to locate factions of people still trapped in the cities, and/or refusing to move.

Major Fendono and the militia were venturing into the cities, trying to keep order from the chaos that had begun since the evacuation, assuring people that there _was_ a way out. Martha had gone with them, upon the insistence of the Major, when she'd found out that Martha was training as a doctor. People were injured, injuring one another, in fact, and though the militia nurses were competent, they were exhausted, and Martha could offer a fresh perspective, she said.

The science conglomerate were in their labs, working out the rate of change in the atmosphere, so that the Doctor and his team of "mechanics" could correctly calibrate the combustion engines, efficiently enough to get the disused ships off the planet in time.

By the end of twelve hours, the Doctor had trained at least twenty of the gardeners to assemble an engine well enough for one emergency trip to a sanctuary moon, where provisions waited for them. They had put back together five small space buses.

The Doctor called for more help, so the President ordered some of her aides and all senators to help in the shipyards. By the end of twenty-four hours, they had thirty buses, up and running with a little help from sonic technology and two or three senators who had been in this line of work before getting into politics. The Doctor had no idea whether thirty buses would be enough, but it would have to do. They were now down to the final six hours before the death of this planet, and he reckoned they'd need at least that much time to locate and gather up everyone that needed to get out.

Anyone with any flying experience was summoned – most of them were militia members – and given a location to go out looking for cells of people. When the two-hour countdown started, twenty of the buses had been loaded with people from the hills and undercities, and had left the planet. The other ten were still looking. The President gave orders that at the ten-minute warning, they were to save themselves, and assume the planet was empty.

* * *

The Doctor, Martha, the President, the Major, about fifteen men and women from the militia, the science conglomerate, the senators, and the Cultivation Order all stood in a large rotunda in the Presidential Palace. The TARDIS was parked next to the wall. They all watched as a clock ticked away, and told them that the planet Asmei had one hour, fourteen minutes to live.

"Thank you, Doctor, for all of your help," the Major said, shaking his hand.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save her," he told her solemnly.

"It's all right. You were able to save the better part of a half-million souls, otherwise doomed to oblivion."

"You would have thought of it eventually," he said.

"My expertise is in war," she admitted. "Planning ways to bludgeon the enemy into submission, and keep our own subdued. Believe me when I say that _this_ would never have occurred to me."

"Well…" he began. "All right, then. You're welcome."

The President stepped forward then. "I'd like to thank you too, Doctor. And Miss Jones as well."

"No problem," Martha shrugged. "It's what we do."

The Doctor looked around the room. "Is everyone here taken care of?" he asked. "You all have a way out?"

"Yes," the President assured him. "Each organisation has its own accommodation, as far as leaving the planet. We had always planned to be the last ones out."

"All right then," he said.

"Doctor, would you and Miss Jones mind leaving us to a few final moments of quiet reflection with our Mother? She's about to lose her life after nineteen billion years, and we'd like a chance to say goodbye," Brother Marigold said solemnly.

"Of course," the Doctor whispered. "Good luck, all."

He and Martha turned to leave, the militia folks did likewise in the other direction, and all citizens of Asmei left in the room began to come together to join hands.

But quite suddenly, there was a tremor, and the temperature shot up noticeably.

The Doctor turned back around. "Er, did anyone else feel that?"

"Yes," one of the senators said. "It's getting mightily hot in here."

Another tremor shot through the ground then, knocking everyone off their feet. With that, came another surge of temperature.

"I thought we had over an hour to go!" the President shouted, struggling to stand.

"It's a volatile process, Madame President," one of the scientists said. His words were drowned by another tremor, forcing everyone to roll to the south side of the room, and have to climb back up. "The rate of decay in the atmosphere must have increased for some reason."

"Doctor, what do we do?" President Hadran shouted.

"Run!" he shouted. "Get to your ships and get out!"


	4. Escape

**Escape**

The TARDIS jostled and shook, and Martha struggled to stay on her feet, just walking up the ramp toward the console. The Doctor was already at the controls, throwing switches and cranking things, to get them the hell out of there.

"Aaagh!" the Doctor cried out. Frustration, pure frustration.

"What?" Martha asked, finally making her way to the circular platform.

"I can't teleport!" he said. "The atmosphere is too volatile!"

"What? You have to have a stable atmosphere? Since when?"

"Since always!"

"You never said!"

He looked at her questioningly, as it to ask, "Really? Now?" And he said. "It never came up!"

"Well, what do we do?" she wanted to know.

"I'll have to fly her out manually."

"How are you going to do that?" she shouted. "We're in the middle of a stone building! This thing is made of wood!"

"Well…" he said, sticking the tip of his tongue out one corner of his mouth with a manic look in his eye. "Then hold on."

With that, the TARDIS seemed to shoot upwards and burst through the ceiling. The impact was deafening, and knocked them both off their feet, in spite of Martha's efforts to "hold on." They moved about inside the TARDIS like two pennies in a jar, both scrambling to find leverage somehow.

"Whoooooaaaa!" the Doctor shouted as he got back to the controls and attempted to steady the vessel. "Blimey! Look at this!"

The TARDIS righted itself more or less, and Martha stumbled to the computer screen where he was looking. She saw what seemed to her to be a computer-generaged image of something boiling.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's the surface of the planet," he said. "It's totally molten now. Pray that there's no-one left alive at this stage."

"Oh my God," Martha breathed, staring at the image. The boiling seemed to be getting more and more intense. She noticed a bar graph on the side of the screen, and one of the levels rising. "Doctor, what does this mean?" she asked, as he continued to dance around the console, navigating them out of there.

He dashed back round and looked. "Oh no! That means the planet is about two seconds from…"

He was interrupted by a sound like none other Martha had ever heard before. It sounded like every molecule inside her head was bursting all at once, and screaming in pain. Once again, they were knocked off their feet as the TARDIS was bumped, and turned upside down and over again. A giant, searing _whoosh_ filled the air, and seemed to fill the whole universe around them, as the trajectory of flying debris from what used to be the planet Asmei shot past the TARDIS at a million miles per hour.

Twice they were hit by chunks, and the Doctor struggled to keep the TARDIS upright. Big swathes of wind blew through the console room in the wake of the hideously destroyed planet.

And then Martha heard the welcome sound of the TARDIS gears. The Doctor had taken advantage of an instant of stability to teleport out, the way that a TARDIS was meant to travel. Peacefully and cleanly, they rematerialised somewhere else, and both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

After a long, melancholy rest, the Doctor and Martha reconvened in one of the TARDIS' sitting rooms with some finger sandwiches. Neither of them said anything for a while, they simply watched an oscillating magnetic gadget work back and forth as they ate.

And then, very softly, Martha broke the silence. "Do you think they all got out?"

"I don't know," he said. "We had a few seconds' head-start on them because our ship was parked two steps away from where we were standing. But this old thing isn't the fastest flying machine in the universe. I'd wager their fancy Presidential space buses and whatnot are a whole lot more zippy than our TARDIS here."

She was quiet for a little while. "I guess we'll never know."

"We can look in the TARDIS' radar memory bank," he offered. "If you think you really want to know."

She thought about it for a moment. "I think I do."

"It might be bad news, Martha," he reminded her, a serious, piercing look in his eyes.

"I know. I've had bad news before, Doctor."

"Okay," he said, standing up. She had been moving at half-speed ever since waking from her post-planetfall nap, and she simply looked up at him blankly. He reached out for her hand, so she took it absentmindedly, and stood up only because he tugged. He led her back out into the console room.

"Here you go," he said, calling up the radar image, pausing it, and showing her. He pointed to some purple dots on the screen. "These are the different ships that were leaving at the time. The President, she had one vessel, the militia had a few others, the scientists had one, so did the clergy and the senators. The rest must be what was left of our rebuilt vehicles from the shipyard."

He replayed the moment when the planet exploded. A few of the vessels were hit by pieces of flying mountain or plain, and disintegrated. But, quite a few were sent end-over-end the way the TARDIS was, and then left the radar screen. In fact, it looked like the majority of the folks leaving Asmei had had a similar experience to theirs. And they were a bit knackered, but basically none the worse for wear.

"It looks pretty good," she said, relieved. "Looks like most of them got out alive. Doesn't it?"

"Yes," he agreed, sounding a little surprised. "Most of them."

"Good," Martha sighed. "I guess it was too much to ask for total…"

When she didn't finish her sentence, he turned from the screen and looked at her. "Total what?"

She was clutching her head. "Sorry," she said meekly, sitting down on the leather seat. "I just… whoa, my head hurts. Like… a lot. It feels like my skull wants to crack outward."

"I've never known you to have migraines," he pointed out.

"No, migraines are concetrated in one area of the head, aren't they? This is all over. And I'm not sensitive to light, or feeling nauseated."

He frowned, taking her head in his hands and feeling the skull. "Did you hit your head when we were tumbling out of the explosion?"

"No. Maybe. I mean, I don't think so…" she said, now frowning herself. "I don't know. Are _you_ feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," he assured her. "As fine as ever, anyway."

He felt her head for an abrasion, checked her pupils for concussion, though did not find anything untoward.

He checked the TARDIS' instruments for changes in pressure over the past several hours, and found nothing of note there either.

"Well, you're well-equipped to comment, Miss Jones," the Doctor said. "Does it feel like something that needs our attention?"

She thought about it. If there was no mark on her skull or any evidence of her having hit her head, then she couldn't think of an immediate reason to panic. It _was_ just a headache at the moment, and she _had_ just been through a really traumatic experience. It wasn't unusual that she should be halfway annihilated by it, and the Doctor should be completely fine – it _had_ happened once in a while, it was the nature of living with a nine-hundred-year-old, world-weary Time Lord.

"Not now," she conceded. "I don't think it's anything serious."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"I'll let you know if it gets worse."

"Okay. Promise me."

"I promise," she said, patting his hand.

"Do you want some outer-space drugs?" he asked.

"No, best not. For now, I think I'm just going to go back to bed and see if I can't sleep it off. Maybe it's just… some chemical in the air on Asmei giving me a hangover or something."

He smiled slightly. "Not overly reassuring, Martha, though I think it would be wise for you to rest. But seriously, you let me know if it comes time to worry. Doctor's orders."

She nodded, and headed back to bed. She crawled between her sky-blue sheets and fell almost immediately to sleep.

* * *

The Doctor found that, while he basically felt fine, he _was_ rather knackered. Only a few hours after Martha had disappeared into her bedroom, he followed suit and fell into his own bed down the hall.

He wasn't too sure how long he'd been asleep when he was awakened.

"Doctor," someone breathed.

"Mmm…" he groaned, just barely coming out of his own stupor. "What?"

"Doctor, wake up."

Clearly, it was Martha's voice, but she sounded funny, strained, a little flat. He sat up and opened his eyes. She had crawled up on the unoccupied side of his bed and was kneeling there. He could see the outline of her face and shoulders in the dark, and could see that her features were twisted in some kind of pain.

He snapped to straight away. "What? What is it?"

"It's time to worry," she whispered, and then fell forward against him, unconscious.


	5. Not Alone

**Not Alone**

Martha groaned. Bright lights, harsh white, an antiseptic scent in the air. If she hadn't felt nauseated before, she certainly did now.

She could hear noises nearby, the sounds of rubber shoes scuffing about on the floor, metal instruments being moved, hands being washed, rubber gloves being blown open, put on and snapped into place.

"Am I supposed to be awake?" she asked.

"I didn't try to put you out," the Doctor answered evenly. "I'm not planning on operating on you just yet, so go ahead and come round if you can."

"Just yet?"

"Well…"

His face appeared above her, with a worried smile.

"How did I get here?" she wondered.

"I tossed you you onto the dessert trolley and wheeled you in with the meringues."

She blinked. "What?"

"I carried you," he told her, chuckling a bit. "Silly."

"Oh. Thanks."

He shrugged. "Meh. Can you sit up?"

She reached out for his hands, and he obliged, and helped her to get to a sitting position. She swung her legs to the side, and looked about, and found that she was in a fully-equipped infirmary, complete with x-ray machines, an MRI chamber, heart monitors, IV trees and about fifty machines she couldn't identify. Thankfully, the Doctor hadn't hooked her up to anything yet.

He asked, "How is your head?"

"Better," she said.

"Yeah? Really?"

"Really," she assured him. "It's like it reached its pinnacle and now it's subsiding. Even though that doesn't make much sense medically…"

"No, but maybe it's something that isn't confined to Earth-based medicine, Earth Girl," he speculated. "Describe what you feel now."

"Erm…" she said, closing her eyes and touching her head with her palm rather absently. "It's a dull ache. Like the inside of my head has been painted with grey."

"Pardon me?"

She opened her eyes. "Hm – I just mean, it's a dull ache. Like I said."

"Your skull doesn't want to split open?"

"No, not anymore."

"Is there any dizziness?"

"Yes, a little."

"What were you feeling a while ago, when you came into my room?"

She sighed. "Oh, I was in more pain than I had ever been in, in my entire life. I thought I'd been shot in the head, or was dying… and I couldn't walk. I had to crawl down the corridor."

"I wondered."

"I almost didn't make it. Several times, I almost collapsed before I could get to you. And my vision was going black at intervals.

"But none of that now?"

"No. I feel much better," she said.

"Well, I'm going to run some tests, anyway," he said. "I want you healthy."

She nodded and smiled appreciatively.

* * *

And for the rest of the afternoon, she just let him do his good work. Scans, probes, blood samples, hair samples, electrodes, monitors, experiments with breathing chemicals, eating certain things, performing certain physical feats and tasks…

But there was nothing. The Doctor could find absolutely nothing physically wrong with Martha Jones. In fact, she seemed to be in excellent shape.

After running five miles on the treadmill while hooked up to every organ monitor in the known universe, Martha asked if he would mind if she took another rest. She assured him she was feeling basically fine, and he was satisfied that she wouldn't die in her sleep, so he agreed to let her have a kip in the recovery room, which was slightly more comfortable than the infirmary, but he could still monitor her there. Well, he could monitor her anywhere in the ship if he wanted to, but if he did it in the medical bay, he wouldn't feel like a creep.

He had planned on letting her sleep for no longer than ninety minutes. However, after being out for fifty-two minutes and forty-eight seconds, Martha sat up on the cot.

"Who's here?" she asked.

He was surprised. "What do you mean, who's here?"

"Is there someone… here?"

"Just me," he answered, looking about.

She frowned, and stared at the wall in front of her. She opened her mouth, and for a while, it looked like she would speak. But instead, she put her head down and grasped both sides with her whole hands. "Argh," she exclaimed.

"Are you in pain again?" he asked, frantically moving about, trying to find some instrument.

"No," she said. "I feel… crowded."

He stopped moving. "Crowded?"

"Yes, like my personal space is being invaded," she told him. "I feel like I'm not alone."

"You're _not_ alone," he agreed. "I'm here. And I was watching you while you slept. Are you saying that you have some kind of residual perception?"

"No. It has nothing to do with you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said with finality. Inwardly, she thought, she _knew_ when she felt the presence of the Doctor in her mind, in her body and bones. That was a feeling to which she had grown accustomed, whether he meant for it to happen or not. This was not about him, she was sure.

"I feel like I'm not alone… _in here_," she said, indicating her head with her fingers.

This set the Doctor on alert. "Are you hearing voices?" he asked urgently, grabbing an ear probe and plopping down on the cot beside her. He handled her head, and gently pressed the light into her ear canal and peered through the scope.

"No, not hearing voices," she chuckled. "And what are you expecting to see in there? Little dialogue bubbles?"

He withdrew the probe. He smiled. "I don't know. Daemon faces?"

"Oh, thanks," she smiled back. "So all my organs are fine, but you're not ruling out possession?"

"Hm," he said with a smirk. Then he gazed at her thoughtfully for a long moment, and Martha took this rare opportunity to gaze back, hoping against hope that he wouldn't notice the longing in her eyes. At last, he took a deep breath and said, "Martha, I'd like to do an MRI."

"You think I have brain damage?" she asked.

"I can't find anything wrong with the rest of you, and now you're telling me you're feeling crowded inside your own mind. What would _you _do, if you were me?"

"Great," she sighed, trying to hide the panic in her voice. "MRI. Like a big, magnetic coffin."

* * *

Hours later, both the Doctor and his unusually befuddled patient felt out of options. So they did what many do when nothing else remains: they had dinner.

"How do you feel?" the Doctor asked as Martha stared blankly into her soup.

"Hm?" she asked, looking up, barely noticing he was there. "Oh, erm… the same."

"Like you're not alone in there?"

"Or being watched… judged, surveilled… in some way."

She pushed the little alphabet-shaped noodles about in her bowl and tried in vain to make them sink.

The Doctor had emptied his bowl several minutes before, not having particularly enjoyed what Martha called "childhood comfort food," but he wasn't much of a gourmet, so he'd barely noticed the bland flavour.

"I'm sorry," he said after eyeing her for a long while.

"Why?"

"Because I don't know what's wrong with you," he replied quietly. "Nothing seems to be physically wrong, and your MRI is completely clean. No damage, no sign of a tumour, no unduly dark areas, temporary or permanent…"

"Well, all of that is good."

"Yes, but it means that the question remains unanswered."

"You'll work it out," she said, propping her chin despairingly on her hand, resting her elbow on the table.

"Are you sure you're not hearing voices? Concentrate."

"Doctor, for the fifth time, no," she answered, only slightly annoyed. "I'm not hearing voices."

"Okay, okay."

"That's too tangible."

"All right, interesting," he muttered, still regarding her intently.

"It's like… remember in _Silence of the Lambs_ when Clarice was walking around in that dark basement, and she knew someone was there because she could sense it, but she couldn't see them?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"It's… well, sort of like that. Sort of. My brain is dark (metaphorically speaking) and it feels like something is concealed inside. Like it can see me, but I can't see it."

"Okay, I'm starting to get a sense of it."

She closed her eyes tight. "Like when a Crushed Orb of any sort becomes absorbed in the nebulous ephemera of a dissolved body of solid matter…" and she trailed off.

His eyes opened wide. "Excuse me?" he asked, very, _very_ interested in these new revelations.

"…two beings become not one, but two, occupying the same space. The dissolution of a pensive body is not a death, but rather a change of state of being." Her eyes opened and she smiled slightly. "You know?"

The Doctor nearly choked. "Y-yes, I do know," he said. "You're giving me the internal, intrinsic logic of the universe. It's kind of my thing."

"Mm, yeah," she mused.

"Martha!" he said, a bit more loudly, clicking his fingers as he did. She was drifting off, and he wanted her back. "Martha – hello?"

"Yes, Doctor, I'm here," she said. "I've not gone anywhere."

"How do you feel now?"

"The same. Why do you keep asking me that?"

A few moments passed as a thought occurred to him.

"Martha, do you remember seeing a bright orange light as we were leaving Asmei, escaping from the planetfall? Tendrils of energy of any kind?"

"No," she answered. "Why?"

"How many aspects are there of the Time Vortex?" he asked.

"How the hell should I know?"

"Hm. Give me an example of a Flugen Paradox, in which time is put on a localised circle, and it takes energy from a different dimension to force time back onto a continuum."

She frowned at him. "What? Are you kidding me?"

"No, I just thought maybe some Vortex energy escaped and got into your mind while we were crashing about," he sighed. "But if you can't answer Vortex questions, then… wait, what about a splintered energy field? What do you know?"

"Only that splintering causes an endogenic momentum of particles, but that the oscillation of the living universe itself causes a suction effect which pressurises and ultimately localises dispersal. So the energy field may remain splintered, but if the reunification is done within a few million years, most particles will hover and remain alive in relatively the same compartment of deep space."

"Is that all?" he asked, sarcasm rising practically as a living entity within him.

"Yes, why?"

"Martha, where did you learn all that? Did you take advanced astrophysics on the planet Alstydd?"

"Of course not. I just… know it."

"Did you know it yesterday?"

"You didn't ask me yesterday."

"Martha, really."

"I don't know!" she answered, more than a little annoyed now.

But the Doctor knew. Something was definitely wrong. She had instinctual knowledge she shouldn't have, and felt she wasn't alone in her own body.

But he could find nothing wrong with her brain, and her mind, when he tested her this afternoon in reasoning and equations, was as sharp as ever.

"Hm, maybe I should try another MRI," he suggested. "I suppose it could be something taking a while to set in…"

At that moment, a bell sounded from the console room. An urgent message was coming in from someone with extremely advanced technology.

The two of them dashed to the console, and the Doctor answered the call. A female voice rang out in the room.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, who's that?"

"An old friend," the voice said. "Tell me, is Martha Jones still with you?"

"Yes, she is. Why?"

"Miss Jones, how are you feeling?" asked the voice.

"Erm, fine," Martha said. "How did you…"

"No headaches? No claustrophobia? No strange outbursts?"

Martha opened her mouth to answer. "Well…"

"That's what I thought, dear," the woman said. "Doctor, you'll need to bring her in right now."

"You know what's wrong?" the Doctor shouted, incredulous.

"Yes! Now listen carefully to the coordinates," instructed the voice.


	6. Déjà Vu

**Déjà Vu**

The Doctor followed the coordinates given by an as-yet unknown voice, claiming to be an old friend. When the TARDIS came to a halt, he looked at Martha and said, "Be on your guard."

"I know," she nodded.

"This could be a trap," he warned, his voice low and his eyes serious.

"I know," she nodded, again.

"Just because they claim to know what's wrong, and that they can fix it, doesn't mean they do, and can."

"Doctor, I know."

"Not to mention, if they _do _know what's wrong, that's awfully suspicious in and of itself. I mean, what are they doing, surveilling us? Stalking us?"

Martha closed her eyes once again. "When nebulous matter has become unconcentrated, and said matter is considered to have been an oscillating consciousness, or part of an oscillating consciousness, it is possible for a kindred consciousness, or facsimile thereof, to follow the beacon-like signal of living fragments."

She opened her eyes and stared at the Doctor for a few moments, and he stared back, disturbed.

"Intrinsic logic again, eh?" he asked. "The universe speaks?"

"Mm-hm," she answered, matter-of-factly.

He took a deep, quick breath and said, "Yeah, that's really creepy. Let's get you some help."

He took her by the arm and led her toward the TARDIS door.

Outside, they were assailed by Apple Grass and sunshine, and they both squinted against the unexpected brightness. In front of them, there was a white wall that seemed to stretch for miles in both directions, though was only perhaps three or four stories high.

"Welcome back, Doctor, to New Earth," a female voice said. It was the same voice that had spoken to them in the TARDIS console room, the voice that had claimed it could cure Martha of what ailed her.

The Doctor squinted harder, and a figure became apparent against the stark wall. Humanoid, and smaller than he, but that's all he could tell. "Erm, hello," he said tentatively. "Do I know you?"

The female stepped forward slightly, and seemed to chuckle. "It seems every time we meet, I am much older than the last time, and you have not changed at all," she said. "It hardly seems fair, Time Lord."

"Yeah, well, that's kind of part of the whole Time Lord gig," he replied to her, uneasily. "Who are you?"

She stepped forward further, and her face came into view. The fur upon her cheeks and chin had grown mostly white, and the skin beneath had grown looser, but the kindness in her feline eyes was unmistakable.

"Nurse Hame," Martha mused.

The cat nun/nurse turned her attention toward Martha Jones. "Yes," she said with a soft smile. "And you have not changed either, Miss Jones."

Martha smiled wearily. "Oh, I have," she told Hame. "Plenty."

The nurse reached out and took Martha's hand in her own. She stared into Martha's dark eyes for a moment, and she said, "Oh yes, I see that now. I see great love in your eyes, and also oppression and strife."

Martha pulled her hand away hastily, and before she could stop herself, she glanced up at the Doctor. He was frowning at her with concern, though she could not tell whether the concern came from what Hame was saying, or whether it was general concern over the condition that had brought them here. Martha looked quickly away from him and stared at her feet in the oddly-coloured grass.

"Yes," she said softly to the nurse. "It's been an interesting six months."

"Have you summoned us here to fix love and oppression and strife, Hame," the Doctor asked, a distinct edginess having entered his voice. "Or something else?"

Looking at him pointedly, Hame said, "No, Doctor. We cannot relieve Miss Jones of strife and oppresion of the love in her heart. Only one man can do that."

He stared back almost expressionlessly, though his lips did press together ever so slightly, and temporarily.

Martha thought she might cry for a moment, before taking a deep breath and pulling her emotions into check.

Hame continued, "We have brought you here to repair what has appeared since your stint on the doomed planet of Asmei."

The Doctor seemed to forget all about the intensity that had been upon the air since they arrived, and threw up his hands. "See, that's what I thought, but how did you know? And more importantly, why don't I know? I have examined her from top to bottom and run every test I can think of, and I can't find anything wrong with her!"

"There is nothing wrong with her body, or her brain, Doctor," Hame said calmly. "The ailment is in her soul."

* * *

The Doctor and Martha followed Nurse Hame through a door, which had been hidden in the wall and only opened by a command from Hame. They stood in a kind of entryway, large, grey and spacious.

"Wait here," Hame said to them, and then she disappeared for a few moments.

"Wow, this is impressive," Martha said, glancing around at the shiny, marble-like walls and floors, the two walls made of clear glass, the black chairs hovering two feet from the floor. "Is this a hospital?"

"Not exactly," the Doctor said. "I'm not sure what it is, to tell you the truth."

"Well, it seems like you could eat off this floor."

"Yeah, it always _looks_ squeaky clean…"

"What does that mean?"

"It means, the first time I met these cat nuns, it was back… well, with Rose. It looked all on the up-and-up, but they were using human bodies to grow diseases, and keeping these people in little sealed-up virus-incubators." By the time he finished the sentence, his teeth were clenched.

She blinked several times in surprise. "Oh. I didn't know that."

"Lady Cassandra body-hopped one of them, and described this life of total despair, total emptiness…"

"Who is Lady Cassandra, and what is body hopping?"

"She's… oh, it's a long story. Suffice it to say, she needed a body, so she took Rose's, but I wouldn't let her keep it, so she took mine for a while, and Rose made her leave again, so she took one of the patients… you know what? Really long story. Anyway, these cat nuns – not all purring and healing. There's some bad juju in the mix."

"But why were they doing it?"

"Oh, they meant well," he admitted. "Mostly. They were using the viruses they were growing as antidotes to diseases they were treating, under the philosophy that the ends justifies the means."

Martha closed her eyes. "Organisms are ephemeral – the flesh, the trees, the insects, even the mountains and streams and plains. Only the soul remains when fragmentation occurs."

He frowned as she opened her eyes. "Yeah, you're not exactly supporting my point of view there, Martha. But it does remind me of why we're here."

"Because I am having giant headaches and something seems to be talking _through _me?"

"Yeah, that. The cat nuns say they can fix you," he whispered. "But I don't trust them."

"Well, who _are _you going to trust?"

"Myself. You."

"Well, neither one of us knows what the hell is wrong with me, not even you, with your big, fat Time Lord brain. So let someone else have a go."

"What if they're doing another _ends justifies the means_ operation, and you become the recipient of an ill-got cure? Or worse, the _source_ of an ill-got cure?"

"Have you got any better ideas?" she asked.

* * *

Hame, the Doctor and Martha walked through a large atrium which seemed to stretch upward the entire four stories of the facility. Over the top, a glass dome loomed with clouded panes, letting in a measure of sunshine though no-one could see the sky. Two large white planters, each of them the size of a small house, figured in the room, each with what looked to Martha like tropical plants, peeking out the top. There were benches around the room, some built into the planters and the walls, some standing freely. The floor was shiny and light blue, squeaky clean with little flecks of silver and black. Various humanoids sat in the room, most of them were in pairs or in threes, talking in low tones. Some of them wore white scrub-like trousers with white tank tops, and some of them wore "street" clothes of the times.

When she looked up, Martha noticed a balcony about halfway up, that lined the wall, all the way around the giant room. Three or four nurses walked upon the balcony, and seemed to circle around, keeping watch. Each watchful cat had a comm device in her hand.

"This is the Visitor's Atrium," Hame explained, stopping in the middle of the room. She invited her guests to look about. "The folks in white are patients, and the others are their friends and family members. Doctor, this is where you will have all of your contact with Miss Jones, for the forseeable future."

"Why's that?" he asked, mistrusting.

"That's the rule, Doctor," she said. "We have facilities for therapy and treatment, but they are closed to unauthorised personnel. "

"So only you and the patients knows what goes on in there. You're the only ones who ever set foot in the facilities outside of this room."

"No, not the only ones," Hame said. He listened for uneasiness in her voice, but heard none.

They continued, and followed Hame through a large archway, and down a wide hall. She led them then into a relatively small, though still quite large, room, that looked like an office.

"Please have a seat," Hame said, as she closed the door.

The Doctor and Martha each sat down in a soft white canister chair, as Hame went to the wall and seemed to adjust something on a control panel.

"Miss Jones, are you comfortable?" she asked.

"I wouldn't say that, no," Martha answered, wishing very hard that the Doctor would just reach out to take her hand.

"I mean, temperature-wise," Hame said. "Are you cold? Too warm?"

"Oh," Martha sighed. "I'm fine."

"Good," said Hame. She moved across the room to a large piece of furniture that looked like a wardrobe. From it she extracted a pair of white trousers and a tank top on a hanger. She brought it over to Martha and asked her to stand, holding the hanger against Martha's shoulders. "This should do. There is a privacy screen there behind you – please put this on."

"Er, okay," Martha said, taking the clothes.

She walked over to the screen, and just before she stepped out of sight of the nurse and the Doctor, she heard Hame say, "Doctor, Miss Jones, this is where I leave you. The Mother Superior will be with you in a few minutes . I will see you in a few days, Miss Jones."

"Wait," said Martha. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong with me?"

"The Mother Superior will do that," Hame told her. "Don't worry – you're in good hands."

With that, Hame left the room. The Doctor swiveled in his chair to look at Martha.

"Is this weird?" she asked him, still standing there with her white clothes in her hands. "I mean, is this what you were talking about, with the secrecy and the white uniform thing?"

"Yes, but they _do_ seem to know what's up," he said. "Maybe when the Mother Superior gets here, we'll learn more – or at least we'll learn more of what they want us to know. If it's not kosher, then we'll leave."

"Okay," she said. "I'm just… nervous. I don't know how I feel about…"

"What? I thought you were the one who said we have to trust someone."

"I know. It's not that. I just didn't know I'd be…"

She looked at the floor. She wanted to say _I didn't know I'd be left here without you, only seeing you in the Atrium_, but she didn't say it. She never said what she was thinking when attachment to the Doctor clouded her brain – why start now?

"Never mind," she said.

"Martha," a new voice said.

Martha looked up. A heavier cat nun had entered the room through the door where Hame had exited. She seemed to be a bit younger than Nurse Hame, though much more commanding.

"Yes?" she said.

"I'm Nurse Thredd," she said with a regal little bow. "I'm the Mother Superior."

"Oh. Hello."

"Hello," said the Doctor to the Mother Superior.

The big cat ignored him, and spoke to Martha as though the Doctor was not in the room. "Please put on the garments you've been given, and we will get started," she ordered.

Martha looked at the Doctor for approval. He nodded subtly, with a careful frown, and she stepped behind the privacy screen.

There was a silence in the room for a few seconds as Martha peeled off her shirt, and began to climb into the white clothes she'd been given. The Mother Superior's voice rang out before too long. "Martha, I know that you're used to deferring to your male companion for most things. You'll have to rid yourself of that habit."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor interjected. "It's just she's…"

"Doctor, I'm speaking to Martha right now. You have not been asked to contribute," the Mother Superior interrupted, really acknowledging the Doctor for the first time since she'd entered the room. "I'll let you know when I need you to speak."

The Doctor was dumbstruck. There weren't many beings in the universe who could shut him up, but the demeanour and tone of this imposing nun had rendered him mute, if only temporarily.

Martha caught a chill from this interaction, and stepped out from behind the screen, all dressed in white. To her surprise, the Mother Superior was standing very near, to greet her, when she emerged. Without asking, the nun took her hand as Hame had, and looked intensely into her eyes. She didn't say anything for a few moments, but she voluntarily let go of Martha's hand.

Mother Superior looked at the Doctor with disdain, and then back and Martha and said, "I see."

Martha sighed with the further reminder of her oppressed and unrequited love, and the fact of it having been brought, again, to the Doctor's attention as well.

"Don't be discouraged, Martha," said the nun. "It's all intertwined, all ailments of the soul."

"It's not an ailment," Martha said bravely.

"It's an ailment," the Mother Superior said knowingly. "You'll see, once it's gone."

"I don't want it gone," Martha was saying as the nun was dragging her by the hand back to the white canister chair.

"Shhh," said the nun. "All right. Just relax. Sit."

She had a terrible feeling that something was about to be taken from her, and she wasn't going to like it.


	7. Matters of the Soul

**Matters of the Soul**

Martha found herself, once again, sitting in a canister-shaped chair, across the desk from a feline nurse nun. Though, this time it was the Mother Superior, Nurse Thredd.

She was uneasy, because she had an urgent question, which she was reluctant to ask in front of the Doctor. But she wanted to make sure that she understood the situation, because the Doctor had said that if things weren't right, they would get out of there. She chose to believe him, and believe that the nuns wouldn't (or couldn't) stop them if they said they were leaving.

She had to ask.

"So, am I to understand," she began, tentatively. "That this ailment of the soul is what caused the shattering headache and the creepy intrinsic-logic-of-the-universe language?"

"Yes, Miss Jones, an ailment of the soul is why you have been called here."

"And you're going to rid me of that."

Thredd smiled slightly, and Martha felt that she could see something not-quite-honest in her eyes. "Yes."

Martha looked at the Doctor with fear, though he wasn't sure why. Then she said to Thredd, "But Nurse Hame said it wasn't the... rather, it wasn't my _feelings _causing this."

The Mother Superior smiled more fully. "No, Miss Jones. Your affection for him is not what is causing the headaches nor the intrinsic knowledge, nor is it why you have been brought here. As I said to you earlier, all maladies of the soul are entwined, fortunately, or unfortunately, however you choose to see it. This is one type of malady, the one with which we are concerned is another, much less _common_ malady."

She wanted to ask whether _all_ romantic love was considered a malady to these nuns, or whether it was just the unrequited sort, but that really would have been too much for her, with the Doctor sitting right there. And besides, as Thredd had said, it kind of wasn't the point.

"Then what the hell happened to her?" the Doctor asked outright. "Stop being so cryptic and just spit it out already."

Thredd looked maddeningly calmly at the Doctor. "You are an impatient man."

"It's how I get things done."

"So I've been told," she said with an equally maddening smirk.

"All right, we're leaving. Come on, Martha," he said, standing up, reaching out for her arm. It was a bluff, but it was the only thing he could think to do, to make the big nun talk.

"Oh, come now, sit down, Doctor," the Mother Superior said, unbothered. Then she said indulgently, "Miss Jones' soul is afflicted by the soul of the planet Asmei."

The Doctor sat down, not to obey the nun, but because he was in a bit of shock. "Come again?"

"We are currently working on and identifying and locating all of the women who were affected," Thredd explained, now seeming a bit forlorn.

"What happened to me?" Martha wanted to know.

"When the planet was destroyed, as you are aware, pieces of it went flying everywhere. And that includes pieces of its – her – soul. Though, the laws of physics tell us that matter cannot truly be created nor destroyed, so we know that the planet's pieces are still _somewhere_, just not intact as a cohesive planet any longer. Not so with sentient energy – a soul."

"Right," said the Doctor.

"Sentient energy, unlike most other types of energy, can be dissipated," Martha finished. She was reaching into her unnaturally advanced knowledge of the universe for this bit of information, though this time, she had her eyes open and seemed to be speaking with her own voice. It was still disturbing to the Doctor, however, because clever as she was, it just didn't feel like Martha. "That is, if it doesn't find an appropriate associative organic body to which it can adhere and which it can inhabit, within a reasonable amount of time. _Reasonable_, of course, is a subjective adjective, and is a variable dependent upon the circumstances and aspects of said energy."

Thredd smiled at her rather sadly. "That's right, Miss Jones. The soul went to pieces and flew outward with the fragments of the physical planet, and any female in its path when it happened was subject to adhesion. Simply put: the soul has to live somewhere, and now it lives in multiple somewheres."

"How many women are there?" asked the Doctor.

"We don't know," Thredd said. "We're still in the preliminary stages of our search, as you can imagine."

"Is it only women?" he wanted to know.

"We assume so," the nun answered. "That is, we are fairly certain so, given that the planet's aspect was feminine, and therefore its soul is feminine. It would seek out other feminine bodies to inhabit."

"So, what are you doing here?" the Doctor asked. He tried his best not to sound sceptical, as he didn't want Thredd to be any more on-guard than she already was. "Why seek out the women? Why not just let old Asmei rest in peace?"

"Because," Nurse Thredd said. "If we can bring back enough pieces of the soul, we can reconstitute it as a cohesive sentient being again, and perhaps give Asmei a new home."

"You mean shove her in the core of a different planet?"

"Perhaps," Thredd shrugged. "There are plenty of planets with no sentience, which _could_ be run by Asmei's consciousness, once reconstituted - especially planets with complex, and failing, ecosystems. Or perhaps she can be the pilot of a sentient vessel or become a watchtower consciousness in the Fleruddi Galaxy where all the criminals live, and try to escape. The point is, she can _be_ something if she is coherent, and she can choose how to spend the next phase of her life, rather than having to spend eternity in discombobulated pieces all over the universe, having had no say in the matter."

The Doctor looked at Martha with his eyebrows raised. He had to admit, Nurse Thredd's argument was making sense to him. Martha gave him a similar expression.

"But why do I have to, like, move in?" Martha asked. "Why can't you just give me a ring when you've found everyone?"

"Because the process of reconstituting a soul is a long one, Miss Jones. You must spend at least twenty hours a day communing with the other hosts of Asmei's soul. It's not like simply gluing a broken vase back together. This is more like readhering it at a molecular level. And the sooner the process can begin, even if we only have a few pieces, the better."

"That makes sense," Martha said. And it did make sense, in that intrinsic logic sort of way. Sentient energy is a fragile living thing, which needs to be nurtured over time. It was perfectly reasonable to ask the women to stay for a while, in order to recohere the planet. "How long will it take?"

"That depends very much upon how many different women there are, and how long it takes to find them and get them here," Nurse Thredd told her.

"Just tell me, are we talking about weeks or months," Martha wanted to know. "Or more like years?"

The nurse thought about it. "If I had to make a prediction, I'd say less than two years, but I cannot guarantee."

"Whoa," Martha said. "Less than two years? That's all you can give me? So it could be eighteen, twenty, twenty-three months! That's a long time, Mother Superior. That's…"

She thought about two years in this place, with the nuns and some strange women with whom she was supposed to "commune," whatever that meant. She thought about two years away from the TARDIS, only seeing the Doctor during the time when "they" said he could visit. Would he even continue to come back and see her after that much time? How much, in the grand scheme of things, did she really mean to him? Sure, he'd allow her to stay here to save a planet, but what about _him_ and _her_, and his funny old life? Would he be able to live that long without a travelling companion? Would he turn up one day for visitation hours with a new girl at his side, both of them looking at her with pity? She burned with jealousy just thinking about it, about some random girl who didn't even technically exist…

She thought about two years, not being able to pop back into London and see her crazy family, and how much, in spite of herself, she would ache to hug her mother and talk to her father, and even hear the frantic voice of her sister on the phone or the moan of tedium she got from her brother when she scolded him…

She looked helplessly at the Doctor, who looked back at her with worry in his eyes. She dared to wonder if he was having the same issues with separation anxiety as she was.

"What if I change my mind in a few months?" Martha asked. "What if I decide I can't take it anymore, and I want to leave?"

"That will not happen," Thredd said.

"How do you know?"

"I just know. It won't happen."

"Hm," the Doctor grunted. "What if she decides _today_ that she doesn't want to do this?"

"She is free to go," the nurse told him. "But I have a feeling that _that_ won't happen either. Will it, Miss Jones?"

Martha turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, what would you do if you were me?"

"Well, I…" he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I don't know, Martha. You know they're right about the planet splitting like it did, the pieces of the soul floating about, you can feel that much, yeah? So the question is, how badly do we think that Asmei needs to be reconstituted?"

"Is she still sentient?"

"Yes."

"Does she _feel_ the fragmentation? Feel pain because of it?"

"Pain is not the right word. Extreme loss would be better. Or some kind of super-uncomfortable dissonance, or… maybe pain _is _the right word."

Martha sat for a few moments staring at the wall, thinking.

"What are you thinking?" he asked her.

"I'm thinking about President Hadran, and the Major, the Cultivation Order, the Senators, all those people we met, all those brave folks who really loved their planet and just wanted to say goodbye, and were robbed of those last few minutes with her."

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. "It sounds like you've made up your mind."

"I think I have. Doctor, I know you have reservations about this, and so do I, but I think I need to stay."

He smiled softly, sadly at her. "It may very well be the right thing to do. So what else could I expect from Martha Jones?"

She reached out and took his hand, and he squeezed back.

"You understand, Doctor," Nurse Thredd said. "We must greatly restrict your visitation with Miss Jones. Your extended presence here would be disruptive."

"How restricted?" Martha asked, even though the nurse had been speaking to the Doctor.

The Doctor looked at Martha, and squeezed her hand again. "Don't worry. I'm not leaving you here. I'm not leaving the planet or the time period until I can take you with me."

"Really?" she asked, relieved. "Do you promise?"

"Of course."

"You may visit for one hour per week," the nurse informed him. "You may choose the day, but the time must be between twelve and sixteen hundred hours."

"One hour _per week?_" Martha asked, incredulous, trying not to whine.

"Yes," insisted the Mother Superior. "No offence Doctor, but a masculine presence would be a hindrance to the process. Your constant presence in Martha's mind, even, will be a hindrance to the process – we cannot risk any further blockages. In fact, if you are really committed to saving the life of Asmei, you will…"

"Do not tell me to stay away altogether," the Doctor warned.

"Very well," the nurse nodded. "One hour per week is our mandate. And all conversations will be monitored, and there is to be _no_ physical contact whatsoever. In fact, that is starting now." She made a gesture that made the Doctor and Martha let go of each others' hands.

"Why?" Martha asked.

"Because a soul is a fragile thing," Thredd told her. "It can be impacted, sometimes permanently, by emotions, which can be triggered by words and contact. We cannot risk part of Asmei's soul being too changed from the original formation, or it will not readhere properly. However, that same emotional impact can be caused by denying access to loved ones, so we are inclined to allow our patients to have visitors on a limited basis, if they feel they need it."

"Well, I need it," Martha admitted.

"All right, then," nurse Thredd assented, standing. "Now, the sooner we get started, the better. Say your _au revoirs_, my friends."

Martha and the Doctor both stood. They moved to hug, out of habit, and were met with a _tut tut_ from the Mother Superior. They both felt the sting there. The Doctor wanted very much to reach out, at least to take her hand, but realised that _no_ physical contact meant no hand-holding either.

"I will see you as soon as I can," the Doctor assured her. "I'll visit you tomorrow, how's that?"

"Sorry, Doctor," the nurse cut in. "It will have to be at least one week from now."

"Fine," he said to Martha. "I'll see you in one week, at noon, and not a moment later, all right?"

"All right," she nodded, trying not to let her voice break.

"And I will be parked nearby, always remember that. I am not far at all. And I will be… checking into things, okay?"

"Okay."

"Come along now, Martha," the nurse said, taking Martha by the arm. "It's time to go."

"Bye, Doctor," she said meekly, as she was pulled through a door. Her last glimpse of him was standing with one hand in his pocket, the other hand waving, and a look of total misery in his eyes.


	8. Communion

**Communion**

Martha was shown, by a young novice cat, to a bedroom equipped with holographic television with selective satellite feeds, a single bed, a window, an attached bathroom with her own toilet, sink and shower. It was not luxurious at all, but it was comfy enough, she thought. She felt as though she were staying in a hotel, but noted that the desk and stationery were absent from the room.

"The schedule is as follows:" said the novice. "Communal time with the other hosts of Asmei's soul takes place twenty hours per day. From midnight until four o'clock in the morning, you are in the atrium together, communing. From four a.m. until eight a.m. you sleep, with your espriband."

"With my what?"

The novice reached into the drawer of the night stand and extracted what looked like a purple sweat-band, equipped with a cyclops eye. "This is the espriband. It networks you with the other hosts, so communing can take place even during unconscious times."

"I see."

"From eight until twelve, it's back to the atrium for more time together, and a morning meal is included in this time. From twelve to sixteen, you have a break from all communal duties, unless you should choose to continue. During that time, there is an afternoon meal and visitation hours. From sixteen to twenty, you return to the atrium, and finally from twenty until the zero hour, you sleep, again, with the espriband."

"Wow. Either atrium or espriband, twenty hours out of the day. I already feel like I'm not alone in my own head – how am I going to feel after a week here?"

"I don't understand the question," the novice said to Martha, blinking.

"Meh, it was rhetorical. Listen, where I come from is a twenty-four hour day as well," Martha said, ploughing ahead. "Is that just a coincidence?"

"No, Miss," said the novice. "You are from Earth, are you not? The colonies of New Earth are chosen for their relative similarity to the original Earth – size, shape, ecosystems, et cetera."

The novice handed her a small remote control, about the size of a travel toothpaste tube, and showed her how to turn on the holographic television, and explained that the first thing that comes up on the screen is a tutorial on how to use the system.

"The time is currently fourteen-thirty," said the young nun. "In one hour and a half, you will be expected to convene in the atrium. Someone will escort you. Have you eaten?"

"I don't remember. I don't think so."

"I'll have one of the serving staff bring you a meal."

"Thank you."

With that, the novice left Martha Jones to her own devices.

Unsure of what else to do, and unused to having "free" time, she watched the tutorial on the holographic television, and began flipping through channels. Many of the channels came up blocked, presumably for the mental health and safety of the patients in the facility. She managed to find some "classic" Earth music videos (mostly stuff she had never heard of, probably from not-too-far into the future from her time) and a really camp soap opera about two brothers who were trying to swindle the same old rich lady, except that the old lady's daughter is onto them, and winds up sleeping with both brothers…

At some point, someone brought her a tray with what tasted like some kind of poultry with bread and brown gravy, along with some type of bitter vegetable she couldn't identify. This person informed her that from now on, she would have the choice of taking her meals in the visitor's atrium, in the inner cantine with her sisters, or here in her room. Martha asked if she had to make that decision now, and the server told her no, that it was a decision she could make each day, though she would always be encouraged to take meals with her sisters. Martha thought absently that it might be nice to take the afternoon meal in the visitor's atrium, especially on days when the Doctor was able to visit.

She was quite deeply into the soap story, marvelling at how even now, five billion years later on the timeline of the human race, soap operas hadn't changed. The rich lady's daughter was just about to reveal which swindling brother was the father of her unborn child when there came a knock at the door.

"Miss Jones? It's time to go to the atrium."

"Okay," Martha called out, and she switched off the television.

* * *

Martha was led down the hall by another nun, one she hadn't met before, into a large, sun-lit room, comparable to the one through which Hame had led her and the Doctor. It was round and mostly white, with a big glass dome that stretched over most of the ceiling. The edges of the floor were lined with white marble, and in the middle, there was a large, round, light-blue carpet with about twenty oversized white rocking-chairs in a circle. A few women hung about on the edges of the carpet.

"Here you are, Miss Jones," the nun said. "The session will start in a few minutes. Feel free to have a seat beforehand, if you wish."

"Thanks," Martha said absently as she took in her surroundings.

There were three women standing in a cluster, all dressed basically like her, in white. Martha decided to introduce herself.

"Hello," she said with a careful, but friendly, tone.

Only when the three women looked directly at her did she realise she had seen them before.

"Martha? Martha Jones?" one of them asked.

"President Hadran?" Martha asked incredulously. She looked at the other two women. "Major Fendono?"

"Please," said the woman who had once been the President of one sector of Asmei. "That is not my title anymore, as there is nothing left to be President of. My name is Bouthilette – that's what you can call me."

"And please call me Aivy," said the Major. "I'm not the Major here."

"And Martha," said Bouthilette, gesturing toward the third woman, who was also quite familiar. "This is Reya… Dr. Laidley. You met her briefly on Asmei, she was part of the last bastion of the science conglomerate."

"I remember," Martha said, shaking Reya's hand. "How long have you ladies been here?"

"Only a day," said Aivy. "We were contacted less than an hour after the planet fell."

"Wow," Martha said. "That's incredible. These cat nuns are really on top of things."

Reya closed her eyes. "Oscillating energy, the consciousness of a body, is like a beacon across the cosmos, to those who have a facsimile, or some other reasonable replication of the pseudo-instinctual magnetising technique known to said energy."

Martha understood what Reya was explaining – it was something similar to what she had said to the Doctor just before leaving the TARDIS, and it had freaked him out. She was saying that the cat nuns must have equipment that can replicate the energy put out by a sentient planet, and that this type of energy is attracted to itself. This is how they were able to track down the women who had been affected by the planet's destruction.

Martha gestured to two other women on the opposite side of the room, who were clustered as they were. "Now, who are they?"

"We don't know," said Bouthilette. "They are new, just like you."

"Ladies, ladies," a booming voice said. "Please choose a chair and gather inward. It's time to begin."

The voice belonged to the Mother Superior, Nurse Thredd, who was now dragging a rocking chair to the middle of the round carpet.

Six women did the same, gathering inward, as they had been told, until they were sitting in a tight circle.

"Now, let's begin by introducing ourselves to the group," said Thredd. "Bouthilette, since you were the first to arrive, why don't you start?"

"All right," agreed the former President. "I'm Bouthilette Hadran, and I am – was – the President of the Western Sector of Asmei. I had a husband and two children, all of whom were evacuated to the moon of Afeudia well before the explosion."

"I am Aivy Fendono, I am a Major in the Seventeeth Intergalactic Defence Militia," said the woman to her right. "I fully plan on returning to the militia as soon as we are able to reconstitute the planet. I have a daughter – she is staying with my sister right now, on Veccled. It's a farming planet, lots of room to play."

"I am Reya Laidley, formerly an environmental scientist on the planet Asmei," said the next woman. "I am very happy to be here. I spent my whole life trying to preserve my planet, and now that it's gone, I am feeling fulfilled to continue my work on its preservation. Thank you, Mother Superior, for bringing us all together."

Another woman spoke up. "My name is Ollery Gelig Liskoa…"

At this, there was a collective gasp from the other three women.

"What? What's wrong?" Martha wanted to know.

"They're upset because they recognise my name," said Ollery. "Liskoa is the moniker given to all of the women of Liskobe."

"Isn't that the planet that destroyed Asmei?" asked Martha.

"Yes, but let me explain," Ollery said. "The rivalry between the two planets was a travesty, and in recent years, it had become, at least for us, very political."

"That's right," the next woman interjected. "And there were several political parties who were totally against the initiative to destroy Asmei."

"Who are you?" asked Bouthilette.

"I'm Spenessa Porco Liskoa. Ollery and I were the leaders of the Planetary Harmony Party. We tried to stop them…"

"Listen," Aivy interrupted. "The important thing is, you're here, right?" She looked for approval from the two native Asmeians, and Martha. To Martha's surprise, everyone agreed.

Bouthilette spoke again. "I feel that you are being truthful. I'm not sure _why_ I should trust you, but I do."

"So do I," Martha said aloud, though she hadn't intended to. She had been thinking the same thing: _why should we trust you?_ And yet, she found that she was moved by the idea of these two Liskobian women who had tried to stop their countrymen from destroying Asmei, and that she, like the former President, trusted them.

All eyes went to her, because she had spoken.

"Who might you be?" asked Ollery.

"I'm Martha Jones," she replied. "I'm… well, I'm a traveller. My friend and I were asked to help save Asmei, but we failed, and were on the planet when the surface began to shift and boil, and we fled from the explosion."

"Really?" Ollery asked, smiling. "Very nice. Who is your friend?"

"He is…"

"All right, I think we are getting off-topic here," the Mother Superior said. "The nature and habits of Martha's _friend_ are not, in point of fact, relevant. What matters is the here and now."

"Sorry," said Ollery. "It's just that, I'm interested to know…"

"In fact," said Thredd much more loudly, deliberately cutting across Ollery's commentary. "I think you'll find that most of the stories you have to tell are now irrelevant."

The six women were a little stunned, and they all looked at each other quizzically. It was the second time today that she'd felt that these cat nuns, while well-intentioned in reconvening the soul of Asmei, had something against the Doctor, or at least the "union" of the Doctor and Martha. She would have liked to question them further, but she reckoned she'd probably never get the chance.

"Join hands," Thredd ordered.

The women obeyed, and Martha found herself squeezing Bouthilette Hadran's hand on the right, and a stranger from Liskobe's hand on the left.

Immediately, it felt right. She felt her anxiety ebb away, and all of her questions subsided. Anything incomplete within her mind now felt more rounded and whole.

The Mother Superior said, "Bouthilette, in as few words as possible, what is on your mind?"

"My children."

"Aivy?"

"The militia. My daughter."

"Martha?"

"Adventure."

There was a pause. "Nothing of the Doctor?"

Martha considered this. "Nothing important."


	9. Turmoil

**Turmoil**

At eight p.m. Martha returned to her room. For a few minutes, she just sat on the end of her bed and didn't move. She was utterly exhausted. The communal time with the other "hosts" had drained an unforeseen amount of energy.

But at the same time, she had never experienced anything quite so exhilarating. The feeling of total camaraderie that had come over her when she had joined hands and communed with the other hosts – this had also been unforeseen, and absolutely amazing. She had felt wonderfully cosy, almost literally felt her soul pressed against those of the other women.

Simultaneously, she had also felt free from all worry – not that her anxieties had disappeared, but it was something different. Just as her soul had felt more whole, she found that any uncertainty had become comfortably certain. Any fragmented thought became rounded ideas, with the _intrinsic logic of the universe_ to support it. All sadness became a compartmetalised part of her, in perspective, something she could deal with and put aside within herself.

She sat and stared at the wall, reflecting over the strangeness of it all. She remembered that, at the beginning of the communal session, the Mother Superior had asked her if there was anything pertaining to the Doctor that she'd like to share with the group, and Martha had answered, "Nothing important." Under normal circumstances, the Doctor was always at the forefront of her mind, and the most important thing in her world. Suddenly, this particular uncertainty had become a certainty: she would never have him the way she wanted him. Sometimes in life, we don't get the things we want, and we are better for it. The tearing-out-her-hair, always-boiling-just-beneath-the-surface unrequited love that she felt became, for a time, just part of who she was, and she could embrace _all_ of who she was.

But inevitably, thoughts of philosophising on the Doctor led to thoughts of the Doctor himself. It had only been a few hours, but she knew it would be another week before she'd see him again, and that made her ache. She wanted to share with him this experience of feeling "one" with other people, with a planet, and she wanted to ask him if this is how he felt, his mind melded with all of Time and Space. She wondered, if so, how could he live that way? How could ne not be constantly distracted and/or beatifically entranced? Perhaps he was, and that's why he was such a spastic sort, and an enigma to her…

And more than this, she just wanted to be with him. She wanted to hear his voice, to watch him move, watch his eyes dart around, and then come to rest upon her. She wanted to be near him and feel his warmth, and everything else radiating from him, all of it making her feel just a little hot, and just a little restless inside. Though it had never felt _normal_ to be in love with someone who would never, and possibly _could _never love her back, but it had become familiar, and she did cherish that love, in spite of everything. It gave her a reason to continue living this life, doing good all over the universe. It kept the Doctor in her heart, right where she wanted him, even when he was nowhere in sight. As she had told the Mother Superior earlier today, it was not an ailment to her, even though she felt bitter and wanting a lot of the time. The emotional aspects of loving the Doctor could be agonising, but the heat and the restlessness felt good sometimes, a satisfying burn, like drug she knew was bad for her, but she took it anyway.

The Doctor was worth the searing, the sting.

But right now, the sting was worse than usual. After having been free from the pain for four hours, it was now back home to roost, and it _hurt_.

She looked at the clock. Twenty-twenty, or twenty minutes past eight in the evening. She knew she was expected to sleep now, but she was a bit wired with her thoughts running all over the place, and her emotions so acute. She reckoned that a few minutes of holographic television, to take her mind off it, wouldn't be so bad, and wondered if there were any other soap operas she could sink her teeth into.

Sure enough, the television was still tuned to the same channel she had been watching before, and another programme was playing. This time, it was a woman devastated by the breakup of her relationship with another woman, and a third woman was trying to reassure her that life goes on. Martha felt a surge of anger toward the friend trying to placate the jilted party, and was not blind to the reason why. Usually, her own situation felt like _her own_, she did not over-identify with pop culture, with songs about unrequited or lost love, or with literary characters – so today, what was the problem?

The problem was the conspicuous absence of her Doctor, and the knowledge that something could take away the pain… temporarily.

She reckoned that the important thing was that she wear the espriband, and commune psychically with the other hosts – the sleep was just a good idea. She rooted about in the night stand for the purple band, and she put it on. It required no knowledge or installation – it simply worked. She felt connected to a network of souls, and felt whole, though she continued to watch the soap opera.

Even as the jilted woman tracked down the lover who had wronged her and pathetically begged to be taken back, Martha felt nothing. She enjoyed the story and empathised with the characters, but her own restlessness had turned to calm, and the sting had been absorbed.

And she knew she had made the right decision by coming here – uncertainty averted.

Within a half-hour, she had fallen asleep with the espriband affixed to her head.

* * *

The Doctor was in the Visitor's Atrium at half-past eleven, thirty minutes before he'd promised Martha he'd be there. He was anxious to see her, both because he wanted to know what the hell had been going on inside this facility run by cats, and also because he felt a bit lonely and missed his travelling companion.

He felt self-conscious under the scrutiny of the nuns looking down from the balcony above. Once in a while he looked up, and invariably there was a severe-looking feline gazing directly at him with disapproval. He would respond with a subtle salute, or an uneasy smile.

At precisely noon, Martha Jones appeared in a doorway, leading off into the inner-reaches of the facility. He smiled at her, relieved to see that she looked more or less the same. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but he had braced himself for a surprise. To his surprise, there was no surprise – she seemed to be the same old Martha.

"Hey!" she exclaimed when she saw him.

He said her name happily, and they met in the middle. As they approached each other, both reached out to hug – Martha had been looking forward to being lifted off her feet, as the Doctor often did when they shared a cathartic moment.

But as they got near, they heard _"Pssst!"_ from above. They looked up and saw a cat shaking their finger at them. "Not permitted," she said to them, earnestly.

"Oh, that's right," the Doctor said, seeming deflated. "No physical contact."

"Right," Martha agreed, and sighed. Within, she told herself, _it's probably just as well._

"That's a bit rubbish," he pouted. "I just want to give you a hug."

"I know, I've missed you," she said, before she could stop herself. Fortunately, the Doctor just nodded.

"So, how are you?" he asked her, looking her over.

"I'm great," she answered.

"Yeah? You look great."

"Thanks!" she said. She felt a swell of happiness, just to see his face and hear his voice again. Over the past week, the _sting_ of the Doctor within her had been rising and subsiding on a regular basis, always peaking just after a communal session. She had had a roller coaster of emotions, thinking of him and life in the TARDIS, thinking of her family and her old life, medical school, her friends… "Let's sit," she suggested.

They walked over to one of the benches, built into the concrete barrier of a giant planter.

"What's it like here?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, it's amazing! You'll never guess! President Hadran – we call her Bouthilette – is here, and so is Major Fendono! And there was someone here from the science conglomerate when I first arrived, and two more have come since then. And three senators! Plus, about four or five women from Liskobe, who belong to a political group that tried to make peace with Asmei before the zealots blew her up."

"Wow, really?"

"Yes! And President Kala from the other sector of Asmei showed up here two days ago, along with two of her aides. When I got here, there were six of us. Now we are seventeen!"

"So… what do you do every day?"

Martha related to the Doctor the twenty-four-hour schedule meted out in four-hour increments.

"So when you have communal time, what are you actually _doing_?" he asked.

"Well, whenever there is someone new, they introduce themselves, then basically, we just join hands and meditate. We become one – we meld together. We… I don't know, it's hard to explain."

"And what does that feel like?"

"It's like… every worry I've had becomes just a thought. All my questions become answers."

"That would be the fragmented soul inside you, finding its other parts and becoming more whole," he told her. "But what about _you_?"

"What _about _me?"

"What happens to _you_ during those times? What you're feeling is the soul of the planet finding its way home. How does the soul of Martha Jones feel?"

She squinted at him as she processed what he was saying. Then she stared off into the distance for a moment. "I don't know," she answered finally. "I've not thought about it."

"Well, think about it."

"I'm not sure I know what you're asking, Doctor," she said. "All I can say is, when I'm communing with the other hosts, I don't feel anything other than peace. And when I let go, I feel a bit of the inner turmoil come back. I mean, the normal turmoil of everyday life…"

The Doctor frowned, and searched Martha's face and eyes for something – she didn't know what. When he looked at her that way, she never quite knew what to say or do, or where to cast her gaze.

"What?" she wanted to know.

"Have they assembled the entire soul yet?"

"No, there are still some hosts out there who haven't been found."

"Have they begun the extraction process?"

"No, not yet."

"Do they need to have the entire soul reassembled, with all of the women present before they can do that?"

"I don't think so," Martha said. "They said they'll start extraction in a couple of weeks."

"How long will it take?"

"They have no idea, they say."

"They say?"

"Yes, they say," she told him, blinking with confusion at the confirmation of her statement.

"So this past week, you've meditated. In two weeks, you'll begin extraction. What's coming up this week?"

"They told us, verbal communion."

"What's that?"

"I guess it means we talk, while communing as usual," Martha said. "Why are you asking so many questions?"

"I'm just concerned about you, that's all." After a beat, he asked, "Martha, what's the probability of supernova gas becoming trapped within a collapsed body?"

"One hundred per cent," Martha answered. "Any gases vented in the universe will eventually become trapped along with light waves in the heart of collapsed body. Four hundred trillion years is the approximate length of the process."

"What is the intergalactic protocol for a slow-moving gravitational meld?"

"Anything below eight thousand miles per second is considered a low-grade emergency, and officers of The Stellina Brigade can be called. Anything above…"

"Okay, okay," the Doctor said, stopping her. "I get it. Tell me about Annalise."

"Annalise? My dad's girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Just because."

"She's… all right. Blonde, busty." Martha shrugged. "She's nice, I guess."

"Mm, good to know," the Doctor nodded.

He couldn't help but mentally note that the last time Annalise's name had come up, Martha had treated him to a lengthy character analysis, including her insecurities and quirks, family background and speculation that her attraction to Martha's father stemmed from a lack of a reliable male role model during her childhood. And now, _shrug, she's nice, I guess._

"You're acting funny," Martha pointed out.

"Yeah, so are you. Listen, Martha, I want you to do something for me."

"Yeah?"

"Remember a few minutes ago when you mentioned that inner turmoil? Promise me that when you get the chance, you'll grab onto that inner turmoil, and hold onto it like your very soul depends upon it. Will you do that for me?"


	10. Walk The Line

**Hello everyone. I don't have anything earth-shattering to say, except it's been a while since I've said hi, and thank you for reading. I'm grateful for all the comments! **

**I believe a corner is turned here in this chapter - the story goes into a higher gear. I hope you're as appalled by this turn of events as I am!**

* * *

**Walk The Line**

Annalise? Fine. Perhaps she _was_ looking for a father figure because her own dad had walked out on her, but people can't always control their feelings or their fate – eventually she would outgrow Martha's dad and move on. Or, maybe she wouldn't.

Medical school? It was a hard road, and she felt relatively confident in her abilities, but if she didn't pass her exams, it wasn't meant to be. She did have other talents, other things she could do to spend her time and earn a living.

Mum? She was in a bit of a rough patch right now, being separated from Martha's dad, but her zeal was only out of love for her family. Anyone would be a bit on-edge if their hopes had been dashed in such a severe way, as when a divorce occurs. In a few years, she'll calm down, and Martha will be able to talk to her again.

The Doctor? He's a wonderful, brilliant, man and Martha was lucky just to know him. So, the fact that he couldn't love her, it wasn't the end of the world. Once in a blue moon someone had come along that caught his fancy, and Martha had simply had bad enough timing to come into his life just after having hideously lost the last person he'd loved. And what would she think of a man who could forget about such a terrible loss so quickly, and turn his attention to someone else, just like that? Not much, that's what. And perhaps under different circumstances, he would have fancied Martha, but she would never really know. And there are some things in life that we're better off not knowing, because knowing…

"Now," said the Mother Superior. "Let go of one another's hands."

Martha opened her eyes, let go of the two women's hands beside her, and looked at the group. Six more women had joined today, and the circle now comprised twenty hosts of Asmei's soul. Three of today's new members were private citizens of the planet who had been on space buses, repaired by the Doctor and/or the gardening clergy, escaping in a haste from the planet as it boiled underfoot. The other three were members of the miitia which had been called in to help rescue the planet, the same militia of which Aivy, formerly Major Fendono, had once been a part.

"Today we begin verbal communion," said the large nun. "Bouthilette Hadran, I'd like you to begin."

"What do I do?" the former President asked.

"Tell us who you are."

"Who I am?"

"Yes, for example, you mentioned you had a family," said Thredd. "Tell us about them."

"Well, my husband's name was – is – Colfan. We met when we were both in Governmental Training on Asmei, oh, more than twenty years ago. He was… well, not exactly brilliant at his studies, didn't have a political bone in his body, but he was _funny_, and was the perfect foil for me. I was too earnest," Bouthilette confessed with a sad smile. "We got married as soon as I graduated – Colfan never did graduate, but he was always at my right hand, supporting me all thre way through the Senate and running the agricultural network in the southern quadrisphere. He was wonderful. And he was an excellent, _excellent_ father. Our kids… they're much closer to him than to me. He has such a generous spirit, is able to give to them in a way that I never could – I was always too busy, too ambitious. But you know, now that I'm here, and they're… rescued, I hope… I'd give anything to spend that time with them. To learn how to be generous like him. To…"

"It's all right," the Mother Superior told her as she sniffled a bit.

"Sorry," Bouthilette said. "I'm just… terrified that I won't see them again. Or if I do, my children will be adults and I'll have missed everything. It all goes so fast."

"Okay, now, Bouthilette, join hands with your sisters," Thredd ordered gently.

The women obeyed, and joined hands once more.

"Bouthilette, tell me about yourself and your family now."

"I'm a mother and a wife."

"And?" asked the nun. "What does that mean?"

There was a pause. "In the scheme of the universe, as compared with the motherhood of planets and stars and millennia, as compared with the spousing of heavenly entities… I am small."

"That's true. But you are a host to Asmei, the great planet. What of your children?"

"They are not," Bouthilette said.

"Your husband," asked the nun. "Your life-long lover?"

"What is love?" asked Bouthilette, rhetorically. "Love is an individual… an individuality. It isolates me. I want to be whole."

"That's right," said the nun. "Now drop hands again. Aivy Fendono… who are you?"

"I was a Major in the Seventeenth Intergalactic Defence Militia. It's an organisation – a militia, obviously – that gets called in, or intervenes, when injustice occurs. For example, when a planet who has done nothing to provoke the ire of another planet, suddenly comes under fire and destruction becomes imminent. We do our best. Obviously with Asmei, we weren't able to help."

"Mm," said the nun. "You said that you have designs on returning to the militia?"

"It's what I intend, yes. I loved being part of the unit," said Aivy. She closed her eyes. "Being a piece of a whole is natural. The soul and the flesh should never be isolated nor merely paired. I am part of a whole."

"Mm. And you mentioned a daughter."

Aivy kept her eyes shut for a moment. "Oh. Yes, her name is Mireille."

"How do you feel when you think about her?"

Aivy opened her eyes. "Guilty. Rushed. Empty."

"Why?"

"Because I have left her with my sister, and I feel that I shouldn't have done that. I am her mother, I should be there for her all the time, not allowing her to be raised by anyone else. My sister is wonderful, but she does not love Mireille the way I do – she _could _never, nor could I ask her to. And I feel that I should get back to her as quickly as possible because I miss her so terribly." The former Major was near tears now.

"Join hands, my hosts," said the Mother Superior.

The ladies obeyed.

"Aivy," she said. "Your militia defends innocents. Tell me why this matters."

"It doesn't matter," said Aivy, now seeming to be in a trance. "The universe oscillates between light and dark, fast and slow, just and unjust. The universe recognises no morality, only logic. Logic tells us that there can be no light without the dark, no just without the unjust."

"So light, dark, it's all the same?"

"Yes. We walk the line all the time. We live in grey, we die in grey."

"Even Mireille lives and will die in grey."

"Even she," agreed Aivy.

"And your sister."

"And my sister."

"What about justice?"

"My daughter will never know true justice. She will know pain, and she will know joy, but never will she see retribution or justification. She will merely live."

"Does she need you for that?"

"She doesn't need anyone for that," said Aivy. "It is an inevitability."

"Martha Jones, who are you?"

Martha was surprised, and her eyes flew open, and her hands came instinctively, protectively, into a folded, closed position in her lap. All of the women let each others' hands go then.

"I'm a traveller," she responded. "I help save planets and…"

"No, that's not who you are. That is who hehas you pretending to be. Who is _Martha Jones_?"

"Oh. Well, I grew up in London, on the original Earth, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I had a lot of dance training and piano lessons and whatnot as a kid… but I was never very good at it; my real aptitude was for science. My family all work in the arts – my mother does PR for a couple of the West End theatres, and my sister does similar work. My father owns his own publishing firm for African and British-African authors, and does a lot of editing himself. But me? Science girl? I went to medical school. I wanted to work with the human body, use real knowledge to help people."

"So you're a doctor?"

"Not yet. When I left the planet, I was about six months from finishing."

"You're a medical student, on your way to becoming a doctor. And will you finish your medical degree?"

"Absolutely."

"You think it's worth doing? Helping people to heal?"

"Yes, of course. Not only heal and get better, but to understand what's wrong with them, and how to prevent disease and injury. I think that more and more, medical professionals have to become educators as much as scientists and 'healers', at least in my time."

The nun looked away from her for a few minutes, took a deep breath, and seemed to be thinking. "You mentioned your _friend_ when we first convened here."

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Tell us about him."

"But when I first arrived, you wouldn't let me…"

"It was not appropriate then," the Mother Superior explained. "Now is the time. Please. Tell us about your friend."

"He's called the Doctor," Martha said. "He is a traveller of time and space. I met him about nine months ago when he landed at the hospital where I was working, and together we fought off these… thugs. Humanoid rhinos. Well, anyway, I… well, I guess I sort of agreed to run away with him. But it's not like it sounds."

"Why not?" asked the nun.

"Because… to say that I agreed to run away with him makes it sound a bit romantic. I really mean that he invited me on one trip, and I said yes. There's nothing romantic about it."

"No?"

"Well, no. Not really."

"How do you feel about that, Martha?"

Martha explored her feelings. She knew that a few moments ago she was okay with all of that. But now?

"It hurts," said Martha. "Because… I _wanted_ to run away with him, like the princess runs off into the sunset with the white knight. I _wanted_ it to be like one of those big, hot summers of adventure and travel and meeting new people and… feeling loving and free. Our outer life, and our inner life… the face we show to the world while we're running and jumping and thumbing our nose at death, and the face we show to each other while we're… I don't know, naked and entwined and and marvelling at how the world can't see us and we share our ecstasy only with each other. It sounds stupid now, now that I know…"

"Do you think about this a lot?"

"I hardly think about anything else," Martha admitted. "Well, that's not exactly true. I just mean, it's always on my mind, somehwere just below the surface."

"What's the problem? Why can't you have the outer and inner life with the Doctor?"

"He doesn't… well, I was going to say that he doesn't have that kind of an inner life, but that's not true. He does. It's just closed to me." She was reflective. "I'm quite sure he's _capable_ of love, just not of loving me."

"He cares about you, though."

"Oh, yes," Martha agreed. "I do believe that, without a doubt. But it's not the same. It's not the way I care about him."

"Martha, the last time the Doctor was here, he advised you to hold onto your inner turmoil."

Martha blinked a couple of times, surprised, though reminding herself quite quickly that all of her goings-on, including with her visitor, were monitored. "Yes, he did," she responded.

"If he cares about you, why would he want that for you?"

"I don't know," Martha answered. "I didn't give it a lot of thought at the time."

"If he is your friend, why wouldn't he want you to let go of all of that? Why wouldn't he want you to be happy?"

"I'm sure he wants me to be happy, it's just…"

"Join hands," ordered the Mother Superior. They all obeyed, and she asked, "Martha, who is the Doctor, really?"

"He's a Time Lord."

"And so much more?"

Martha was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "No, not really. Except that he's the last of his kind."

"What does it mean to be a Time Lord?"

"Not much when you're all alone."

"What does _he_ think it means to be a Time Lord?"

"He seems burdened all the time."

"By loneliness?"

"Yes, but also… he thinks he has to bear the weight of the universe on his shoulders."

"Would the universe continue to exist without him?" asked the nun.

"Of course," Martha said, almost in a singsong fashion. "Life blossoms, the cosmos turn, time heals itself eventually – the Doctor is only one man, and the Time Lords swore not to interfere anyhow."

"How much does the Doctor matter?"

Martha sighed. "He couldn't save Asmei."

"But he tried."

"Perhaps he shouldn't have. Planets die, all things come to an end. The universe has no joy without sorrow, no life without death."

"And what of your projected vocation, Martha? Saving lives, using knowledge to heal?"

She repeated, "There can be no joy without sorrow, no life without death."

"How shall we all live, if the Doctor, the Time Lord, is not important, and doctors, the healers, are not important?"

"We shall live – that is all. We walk the line every day between life and death. We are all living, we are all dying – it makes no difference whether anyone intervenes."

"Good. Ollery Gelig Liskoa, who are you?"

* * *

Almost a week later, once again, the Doctor waited at least one half hour ahead of time to see Martha. He paced back and forth, fidgeting with his hair and his tie, he tried to distract himself by singing softly, but he _felt_ each moment pass as slowly as linear time possibly can, and he grew impatient.

More and more, he missed his companion, and he was anxious to see her. He had a lot of down time now, quiet moments and hours in which to think on the situation. Nurse Hame was one type of creature, but the cat nuns on the whole had been known to be sketchy. And increasingly in these times, he regretted his decision to allow Martha to stay here at the facility. If he had any idea what would happen to a human being, in the long run, carrying a piece of the consciousness of a living planet in her mind, he might take her away and leave the whole sordid mess behind. But he didn't want her brain to blow up, and he sure as hell couldn't extract _a planet_ himself without fragmenting her native mind, so… well, perhaps this _was_ the only option.

Actually, it didn't seem possible that _anyone_ could extract the soul of a planet without messing up the mind of the host. A soul or consciousness is not tangible matter, it is _energy_. Non-material energy is notoriously difficult to isolate from other types of energy – once hot dry air mixes with cold vapour, is it still possible to suck out the hot dry air? And now that he thought about it, he didn't recall the cat nuns at any point saying that they could reconstitute the planet, and leave Martha exactly the same as she had been.

This was why, the last time he'd seen her, he told her to hold onto her inner turmoil. He didn't like what she had said about her problems going away, her questions being answered, as a result of the communion with the other hosts. Along with passions, a person's problems, worries and questions make the individual. Once those things are taken away, everyone becomes alike, like zombies or robots. And he knew that part of the objective was to have the women meld with one another, but… well now, he was back to the same argument he'd been having with himself for two weeks. Martha is posessed, something has to be done – what's the alternative?

He desperately wanted to probe, do research, launch a full-frontal attack on the facility's computer system and find out what they were up to. But he didn't have all the facts yet – no real evidence (other than his past experience on New Earth, with the disease incubators) that these particular cat nuns were doing anything untoward. All he had was a fragment of a hunch, and some rudimentary physics, as his argument. And Martha, as far as he could tell, seemed to believe in the methods, and certainly seemed to feel that reconstituting the planet Asmei was worthwhile. He couldn't argue with that last bit, it was simply the arena in which it was occurring that made him feel uneasy.

He'd give it a bit more time; he didn't want to derail something good, if Martha and the other women were benefitting from it…

"Hi, Doctor," jolted him out of his reverie.

He looked up with a start, and Martha was standing in front of him, dressed in white as usual.

He felt deflated, though, when he saw her. Her eyes were half-closed, and she wasn't really making eye contact. Her hands and arms were limp at her sides, and the smile which had greeted him last time was light years away.

"Martha, you look exhausted. Are you all right?"

She searched his face for something, and seemed to be thinking him over. "I'm fine, Doctor. No better, no worse."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. So what have you been doing?" she asked with a little sigh, as though the thought of listening to him speak might actually prove to be tedious.

"Well… not much. Been seeing the sights, catching a few films, studying the local florae."

"No oh-so-great adventures?"

He squinted at her, surprised at her tone. "No, I told you I wouldn't leave the planet or time while you're here, and I haven't."

She smiled very subtly. "Do what you have to do, Doctor. If you think you need to be somewhere else, that's swell. Go play."

"Martha, really. Are you feeling depressed? Queasy? Drugged?"

"Nope. I'm just fine."

Yeah, something was definitely not _just fine_.


	11. The Tour

**The Tour**

The Doctor, in his universe-hopping, spastic way, had always been suspicious of the word "fine," and of the concept of "calm."

The last time he'd seen her, he had told Martha in the moment that she seemed exhausted, but the truth was a bit more disturbing than that. What he had seen in her was not exhaustion, but more of an eerie calm, like the eye of the storm.

When he'd first left her, she'd been very keen that he not be too far away from her for too long. Yet, on the last visit, she'd told him very flatly that if he felt he needed to go somewhere else, that was "swell," and that he should "go play." On the first visit, she'd been excited to tell him all about the place, the communal events, the facility itself and her relationships with other patients. On the last visit, she'd said little more than that everything was "just fine," and that he shouldn't worry about her.

When last they'd travelled together, he'd felt warmth in her. Even after their stint in 1913, and in 1969, which had taxed them both emotionally (especially her, he knew), he'd been able to take refuge in her friendship, camaraderie, her faith in him, and her love. On the last visit, the camaraderie had disappeared. The friendship seemed obligatory. And the love? Well…

He decided to begin the probe he'd been itching to do. Martha was getting lost, and it was partly his fault. Time for action.

He flew the TARDIS manually back into the neighbourhood of the cats' facility, and leapt up into the air above. He was now suspended high enough over the surface of the planet that no-one could see the little blue box with the naked eye, and he doubted that the cats would have any reason to have instruments that scan the atmosphere above.

"Right," he said to himself, aloud. "Let's begin with the basics, shall we?"

He turned on the high-precision camera and began to scan the complex. From the ground, it was nearly impossible to tell how large the facility was, and/or how high. There were hardly any windows and all of the exterior walls were overwhelmingly (and distractingly) wide and high. They all gave the impression that to get an idea of the size of the place, one would have to back up by about a kilometre, and have a good look. And indeed, that might have been true.

From the air, he could see that it was all basically one level that took up acres and acres of space. It was enormous, and the walls were concrete, several feet thick. That is, except where there was glass, like in the atrium where he visited Martha. It was an accepted convention of the times that the walls of medical facilities be reinforced against standard atomic blasts (much smaller than atomic blasts in the days of Original Earth), and against their experimental drugs, should they be atmospheric drugs. So it didn't seem unusual, but then again, nothing about the other hospital he had seen on New Earth had seemed particularly unusual, and yet the reality had been horrific.

He switched to a special infrared setting which allowed him to see through the concrete. What he saw was fairly standard – patients in their beds, some of them gathered in different places, doing tasks, talking to people. There were nuns milling about everywhere, most of them just minding their own business. A variety of atriums, waiting rooms, examination rooms and patient quarters, even what looked like offices.

And then there was machinery. He saw some mightily disturbing apparatuses, including a few he had never seen before. He did recognise a sentience incubator with brain jars all around, something similar to the machine that Lady Cassandra must have used when her brain had to be preserved, after her actual head had become unusable. There was a large cavern full of small chambers which were quite similar to the ones he had seen in the other hospital on New Earth, though the infrared sensors did not register any living presence inside them. He saw at least three places in the facility where they could re-program memories. It was a particularly odious development of the past millennium or so; a way to deal with trauma at first, but it had become simply a way to cheat life and fate and the natural order of things, and only for the rich and foolish.

He typed a few commands into the keybord on the console, and asked the TARDIS to detect any machinery that deals with the soul.

And he got a hit. The TARDIS could not pinpoint where it was within the facility, which mad machine of the myriad harboured the power, but there was a hit. Energy from souls bouncing about within the facility indicated that these nuns had extracted souls before. The Doctor could not tell whose souls, and/or from what types of beings, and he could not tell whether the machinery was capable of reconstituting a _large_ soul as the nun claimed they could do…

But he had to know. The change in Martha over the past week was great enough to launch one of what Martha had flatly and sarcastically called an "oh-so-great adventure." Because if she had changed this much in just a week, and the nuns were saying that this process could take two years, what kind of a shell of Martha Jones would he have back when they were finished with her?

"Do you think the facility has a PR department?" he asked no-one in particular.

* * *

"Good afternoon, sir, how may I help you?" asked a bald man in a suit, sitting at a small desk. He was thin and his skin was greyish-blue, though he was, in every other way, humanoid.

"Yes, hello," the Doctor said. "I'm John Smith. I, er… I really don't know how to ask this."

"Well, don't be shy, sir. Please have a seat."

The Doctor sat down in a cushy brown chair across the desk. "Well, my father is experiencing some… symptoms. And, well, I'm no doctor, but I've been suspecting that the problem is a _soul_ malady of some sort, rather than your standard-issue dementia."

"Yes, sir, we do handle that sort of thing," said the man. "But this is the PR department. If you're looking to admit your father you'll want to go…"

"No, no, you misunderstand me," said the Doctor with a sheepish smile. "I've already been on the comm with Nurse Thredd, the Mother Superior. She said that if I'm having doubts or curiosities or what-have-you, I should see you. Request a tour."

"Oh, of course," said the man. "We can certainly arrange that for you."

The man rooted around in a desk drawer, and came up with a piece of paper with lots and lots and _lots_ of writing on it.

"If you would sign this, sir," he requested, handing the Doctor the page with a pen.

"What is it?" asked the Doctor, taking the pen.

"It simply states that you will not disclose anything that you learn about our facility, as what you will experience is technically part of our mental health division, and we are constrained by confidentiality."

"Okay, sure," the Doctor agreed, signing _John Smith_ on the dotted line, as he had countless times in his life.

"Lovely, come with me please." The man stood up mechanically, and swiped a card, which opened a door. He ushered the Doctor through it, and then walked past him, gesturing with fluorish for him to follow.

He was led into a small room, carefully and dimly lit, that had two carpet-covered benches. The man gestured for him to sit, and then he gave the command, "Video, please." With that, a holographic screen appeared in front of the Doctor, with a sweeping, beautiful image of the outside of the facility.

A voice-over came on, that of a chirpy woman, welcoming the viewer to the facility, and explaining with statistics how it is the foremost facility of its kind in the known galaxy.

"At any given time, we house between four thousand and forty-five hundred life forms as patients here, and all of them receive the best care available anywhere, from the best-trained nurses in existence. One of our crowning achievements is our newly-instituted Soul Inreach Centre, which provides a safe haven for individuals with ailments of the soul. Our Mother Superior, Nurse Thredd, with over seventeen years' experience dealing with soul calamities, heads up this division. Let's let her tell you more about it."

An airbrushed version of Nurse Thredd appeared on the holographic screen, smiling beatifically, her voice softened almost to a hypnotic level. The image was clearly of her, but she was nothing like the no-nonsense cat that the Doctor remembered meeting.

"We have nothing but the utmost respect for the mind and soul," she said. "And yes, we are absolutely dedicated to freeing the individual from whatever ails them. But we are concerned, first, and most importantly, with our patients' well-being and comfort. That's why our communal room is state-of-the-art. We also believe that our patients' time is valuable, and so we have developped a rigourous schedule of meditation and relaxation, specially meted-out in order to maximise the productivity of our therapeutic sessions."

The original sanitised voice came back and explained more, in even more watered-down and benign terms, what is done in the Soul Inreach Centre. At the end of the two-minute video, the Doctor felt that he knew even less than when he had entered. Then, the viewer was invited to stand, exit to his right, and follow the tour guide in order to learn first-hand how this wing of the facility operates.

The bluish man was waiting for him when he went through the door. He said, "My name is Piethros, I'll be your tour guide. This way, Mr. Smith. I'm going to ask you to hold questions until we stop in the communal atrium, and to do your best not to make eye-contact with any of the patients, please."

He led the Doctor through a series of small rooms, most of which had patients in them, all humanoid, but clearly not all human. Some of them seemed disturbed, others not, and all of them were wearing the same white outfit in which he had seen Martha. They arrived in the atrium, very much like the visitor's atrium, with the large round blue rug and the series of white rocking chairs.

"This is the communal atrium," Piethros explained. "This is where the community of the soul occurs. At the moment, the nurses are concentrating on a special case of a fragmented soul, so your father will not immediately be treated in this room – at least until after the fragmented soul has been resolved and reconstituted. This way please."

As the Doctor followed Piethros down a corridor, he noted that the receptionist/tour guide had not actually explained anything of what is actually done there – only the very abstract goal. The Doctor reckoned that he likely didn't know. He had memorised certain things to say, and didn't actually need or care to know the details.

He knocked gently on a door, and waited about five seconds. Then he led the Doctor into what looked like a hotel suite. There was one large room equipped with a plush sofa and two armchairs, aimed at a holographic television. There was a fireplace with voice controls, and a coffee table with an actual coffee dispenser set into the wood, below a glass panel. Behind the sofa, there was ample space to walk, in addition to an antique-looking chess set, and a hefty piece of marble that seemed to serve as a breakfast bar. Beyond that, a full kitchen with hardwood floors and marble countertops, a fridge with an invisible door and hover capabilities, to keep vegetables and fruits from bruising on shelves, and/or spoiling while the chef stands and decides what to remove for lunch.

Adjacent to the room, through a wide archway, there was a bedroom with an extremely wide bed. He saw the espriband station stretching over the headboard with its flashing purple lights and blue mirror host port. There were two night stands, one equipped with a water dispenser and automatic cup cleaner, the other with a comm device, reading "Emergency Communications Only."

"This, sir," said the tour guide. "Is one of the patient living quarters."

"Seriously?" asked the Doctor. "This suite is for one patient?"

"Yes, each individual patient stays in quarters exactly like this," and he proceeded to explain to the Doctor what each gizmo and gadget did, though the Doctor could plainly see it all for himself.

As Piethros spoke, the Doctor was a bit uneasy. Something didn't add up about this room. He had only seen Martha twice, and only once did she seem like herself, granted, but he felt sure that if she were staying in a room with a refrigerator that floated produce, she would have mentioned it. Probably with wide eyes, and some emphatic slang phrase that befit her enthusiasm. It was one of the things he looked for in a travelling companion, someone who would appreciate what they were seeing and get excited about the universe, and perceive it as the amazing, wonderful place it was. That description suited Martha in spades, and as he thought of it, he actually felt a pang of loss.

Piethros was emerging from the loo, speaking about the special expensive tile on the walls of the shower, when the Doctor's mind came back into the moment.

"Do you have any questions so far, sir?" he asked.

"No, not so far."

"Now, if you would have a seat on the sofa, we have another video presentation to show you." The Doctor obliged, and sat facing the holographic television. Once he was settled, the tour guide said loudly, "Tour video two," and the screen blipped on.

Once again, some very beautiful and sanitised images of the inside and outside of the facility appeared on the screen. This time, the voiceover was male, and it proceeded to explain the origin of the Soul Inreach concept.

The Doctor grew more and more suspicious, and eventually angry, as the voice condescendingly told the viewer not to worry about their loved ones who came to be patients. According to them, as soul-afflicted patients are treated, there is a "normal" period of time in which the patient may not seem like him or herself. A soul is essentially a personality, and when the soul is being treated, the personality is bound to change. A glazing-over of the eyes may occur, as well as former passions and interests disappearing.

This was the worst kind of half-truth. Yes, the soul houses personality, passions, interests, and yes, if the soul is manipulated, those things may change. But they do not disappear. A sentient being, and individual, is made up of those things; it was the inner turmoil Martha had mentioned and that he had advised her to cling to. If those things were taken away completely, the person (or being) not only would cease to be an individual, but he or she would become almost without sentience. Soulless. No love, no passion, no fight.

He thought about his earlier musings over Martha's warmth and love – he had felt none of that the last time he'd seen her. He wasn't blind (in spite of how he acted sometimes) to how she felt about him; he knew that at least one of her "passions" was _him_. And she had been utterly uninterested in him the last time they'd met. This should not be happening. The communal time she had described during their first visit, in which her worries and cares became more like "just thoughts," seemed to him more real than what the video was describing, and what he could see happening to her in their second visit. At most, if the soul of Asmei was intertwined with hers and was being merely manipulated, Martha might feel her passion turning into revulsion – the other side of that particular visceral emotion coin. Or possibly, she might begin to feel warmer toward him as her friend, and begin to feel grateful for the relationship they _did_ have, rather than pine for the one they didn't…

But what he had seen was indifference. She suddenly didn't care whether he was there or not, and acted like the work he did, the work they did together, was tedious and unnecessary. When it came down to it, he could live without her non-platonic feelings for him, but he couldn't live without her avidity, _joie de vivre_, whatever one might call the part of her that made her The Doctor's Companion.

The video went on to assure the viewer that though a patient might seem a bit "dazed" whilst here, he or she would be returned to loved ones as good as new.

This seemed impossible, and mentally, he was shaking his head with disbelief. He knew that energy, once mixed with other types of energy, could not be easily separated. That meant that almost definitely, a passion, a singular emotion, once removed, could not be replaced. Granted, sometimes, a person who suffers from depression or schizophrenia might lose interest or enthusiasm for something. But eventually, those things might _organically_ return, and this was because they hadn't been artificially removed_._ In cases of mental illness, the passion is still in there somewhere, it just becomes superceded by the illness.

But this? This whole thing felt fishy, and he reminded himself _again_ that he had once trusted the cat nuns and had been burned, and where the life of a companion was concerned, he could not afford to take chances. He allowed himself, very briefly, to imagine having to bring Martha back to her family as a husk of her former self – no more motivation to study medicine or travel or spend time with them – and having to explain what had happened and why he had not interceded. He pushed the thought quickly away with a little shudder. He would not let it get to that point. He had to focus, for Martha's sake. He had to find out more before he acted, because the soul is a fragile thing. If he misstepped, he could damage her permanently.

He was really bloody finished with the stupid PR tour. It was created to lull, clearly not to inform. He pretended to watch the rest of the video, and mentally scolded himself into returning to his original train of thought.

Now, he wasn't entirely certain (though he assumed so) that _feelings _would become energy. And if so, what were the nuns doing with them? Or were they simply being bounced about as part of the soul, whatever they were doing with souls? Either way, he feel that it was fairly unlikely that the nuns were keeping people's emotions in a jar someplace, for later reintroduction. The feelings Martha had lost might very well be permanently gone. He shuddered again.


	12. Inflammatory Plans

**Inflammatory Plans**

As soon as he was finished with the tour, the Doctor returned to the air space above the facility. There was so much wrong with the tour, so much that was suspicious about it, he almost didn't know where to begin investigating. So, he decided to begin with something superficial and fairly benign: the living quarters.

He had felt during the tour of the opulent suite that it couldn't really be an example of how the patients lived. It wasn't practical, and he had the distinct feeling that if that were true, Martha would have mentioned it. He tried to get a sense of where the room was located, based on where the PR entrance was, and where they had walked once the tour had begun.

More quickly than he'd counted on, he found the room, and even detected a faint heat signature hovering about the sofa, where he had been sitting just ten minutes before. He also located the hallway through which he had been led, just before Piethros had knocked softly and let himself and the Doctor into the suite. The room had been in the middle of the hallway, which had given the impression that all the other doors led to a similar room. But now, looking from above, he could see that the doors he had seen were dummies, and the rooms around were offices and exam rooms, which had their own doors that led to back passages. He also looked for other rooms like it, and found no others. It seemed to be unique.

Elsewhere in the facility, he could see what he'd seen before – hundreds of smaller rooms, much more standard dormitory-sized quarters with simpler accommodations where the patients actually stayed.

So the suite with the produce-floating fridge was a PR trick to make the facility seem not only better-equipped than it was, but also possibly safer, more humane, and more attractive. It was a fairly innocuous example of how sneaky the cat nuns could be, but it was a start, he had hard-core proof of it, and it made him wonder, not for the first time, what else they were hiding.

The Doctor switched off the surveillance screen and sighed, piloting back down onto the _terra firma_ of New Earth. He stared into the time rotor for a long while, again musing over the mechanics of the soul (about which, admittedly, he knew relatively little) and how the PR videos depicting the manipulation of the soul could not possibly be true. He knew he needed to do more research on the soul as a concept, but another thought eventually occurred to him as he stood stoic and his mind twirled.

"I wonder…" he said aloud, flipping his computer back on. He did an overall search for any information available on the actual _individual nature_ of sentient planets, in particular the planet Asmei.

Thre was disappointingly scant information. Except…

He had hit upon an Abstract Data Pocket on the planet Asmei, its feminine aspect and its relationships.

He remembered a year or two previously, doing research on a topic now long-since forgotten, and finding an Abstract Data Pocket that had helped tremendously. He remembered at the time explaining to Rose that an "ADP" is sort of like a Wikipedia page, but the information contained has been made available abstractly, via a sentient data channel. If someone could _think_ a webpage into existence, it would be very much like an ADP.

The Doctor directed the TARDIS to absorb and translate the information in Asmei's ADP, and display the information as text upon his screen. The vessel obeyed within a second or two, which surprised even the Doctor, and he ran his eyes over the data.

"Hm," he grunted. Aloud, he said to his ship, "Can you display the source of the data?" He wanted to know whether the planet itself had built the ADP, and/or whether whoever _did_ do it was an objective and reliable source.

When he saw the source, he almost choked.

"What?" he asked with a little shout. "Seriously, what?"

The TARDIS groaned at him. It was the equivalent of, "Well, if you'd been paying attention, you'd have realised!"

_She,_ his beloved and trusty TARDIS, was the source of the ADP. And the only way she could have done it was by having intimate contact with the planet. She was harbouring a piece of Asmei's soul, just like Martha.

He should have known.

He apologised to her, but she replied that she would not suffer for it. She was a far-reaching entity that existed all across time and space, and was quite used to harbouring different essences, communing with nearly every being with whom she had come into contact. She reminded him that she still had the energy signatures of all of his different regenerations, and could, if he so chose, re-make him temporarily as any of his former selves, or retrieve the feelings he'd felt in a different incarnation…

"I have an idea," he told her aloud. And then silently, he used his sentient connection with her to request a sampling of Asmei's soul. He knew that the planet would never allow her soul to be housed by a male, but he could, almost as the nuns were doing, convert it to data, and treat it as such. He plugged the sonic screwdriver into the console, and waited.

Then the TARDIS communicated to him that she was finished installing the requested essence. He thanked her, and then broke his promise (in a way) to Martha by jumping ahead one week in time, precisely noon. He had just seen her, but it was time to see her again, time to see what difference another week would make to her.

* * *

Martha sat beside him on a bench, and stared straight ahead. She didn't seem markedly different from last time, which was both disturbing and reassuring to the Doctor. She still wasn't herself, still didn't seem to care whether he lived or died, but at least she wasn't getting noticeably worse.

She sighed. "So, why don't you tell me what you've been up to?"

"I took a tour of the facility last week," he told her.

"Oh?"

"Yep. Of course, it was the PR tour, but it was very informative." He thought of this as a little white lie, but it did occur to him that it was the truth after a fashion; the lack of information had spurred him on to further knowledge.

"And what did you learn?"

"I learned that, apparently, you live in a room with a fridge that allows your fruits and vegetables to hover, so as not to bruise."

"No, I don't," she said flatly. "Our meals are provided. I have no need to live in a room with any kind of food-storage."

"Hm, you don't say. Listen, Martha, do you want to leave?"

He noted out of the corner of his eye that one of the cat nuns who was walking on the track above, looking down, had stopped moving. She was undoubtedly staring at them with a carefully-orchestrated scowl. He did not dare look up at her – he didn't want her to know that he had any idea that what he was saying was inflammatory.

In fact, he was about to do several inflammatory things. He had a progression of ideas that he thought might work, but he had to fly under the radar as much as possible. So, trying to get her to leave was Plan A.

"No, I don't want to leave."

"Are you sure? I mean, Nurse Thredd said you could choose to withdraw anytime you like."

"Asmei is still not complete."

"I know, but Martha, nineteen billion years is a pretty good run. It's more time than most of us get. Well, I guess _that_ goes without saying, eh?"

"Doctor, really."

"And what are the odds they'll find all the pieces of the planet anyway?"

"There are still some pieces of her soul missing, admittedly."

"Yeah, see? It's really unlikely, which you must know, since you have all that intrinsic logic stuff now. You might as well go about your life."

"No, thank you, Doctor."

Well, Plan A had been a long-shot anyway. Time for a change of tack.

"I just… well, I miss you. I mean, I'm a Time Lord. I could probably figure out a way to help you extract Asmei's soul without all this communal rubbish. The one thing I can't do is hang out with other Time Lords, so that's why I look for brilliant humans to be with. And now, I can't even have my brilliant human. Come on – let's go, let's just travel again. You could be an outpatient."

The seeds of inflammatory Plan B were now planted.

"You miss me?" she asked. There was a hint of inflection to her voice, but just a hint. The was the first time her tone had changed from completely flat since he had arrived.

"Yes," he said. "A lot. You are very important to me, Martha."

"Am I?"

"Absolutely. You know, I've been thinking a lot about you… about us, and what it all means."

She was now simply staring at him. She wore a frown, though she did not seem disinterested.

Was it working? Was _this_ going to be the thing that got through? If something of Martha Jones was left in there (and he felt sure that it was), then he'd wondered if perhaps he could pull it through by accessing and provoking that old dwindling passion.

Over the next few seconds, he thought very quickly. If this worked, then he had to really explore himself, and make sure he was prepared to see it through. After the tumultuous time they'd spent both together and apart, and all the turmoil he'd put her through (including this soul business), he was _not_ going to just tease her. If she came round to herself because she had some hope that he might love her, then it might very well be her undoing if it turned out to be just a ruse.

And, he decided he was prepared. He could definitely think of worse things than being in a romantic relationship with Martha Jones, even though he'd spent the last nine months almost actively avoiding it. Not that he was exactly running toward the idea with gusto, but if that's how things ended up, then he decided he was all right with it.

"I can't… I can't fully say for sure what I'm feling, Martha, I just know that life without you hasn't been easy. I don't know anything except that I… I need you. I need you back in my life, and not just because I hate travelling alone. It's a different kind of loneliness now… like much more personal, and it's something I haven't allowed myself to…"

"Doctor," she interrupted. She was still frowning. "Please stop. I do regret your loneliness, but I have an obligation to my sisters."

Damn it. He'd really thought Plan B might have a shot.

He saw the nun above, out of the corner of his eye, begin moving again. He felt that she was gloating, probably smirking at him for the "rejection" he had just experienced.

Time for inflammatory Plan C.

"Martha, would you stand up, please?"

She obeyed, and looked at him, waiting for him to speak or act.

He stood up as well, and said, "Okay, so scratch what I just said – all the mushy stuff. But whatever happens, I do want you to know that I miss you, and I'm going to help you in any way I can, because you're my friend and I love you. Okay?"

"Okay," she answered, again disinterested.

Then he took a step forward and hugged her. She didn't really achieve the wherewithal to hug back straight away, but he hadn't expected her to. All at once he held the sonic screwdriver to her back and took a reading.

"Oi!" he heard from above. "No physical contact!"

He didn't stop. Very slowly, he felt Martha's listless arms begin to curl around his middle, but it was without impetus – it was merely a reflex.

"And what is that device? Turn it off right now!" the nun shouted.

"I know I'm not your favourite guy at the moment – I don't know if you're even capable of the concept of _favourite_. But I haven't lost my faith in you," the Doctor told Martha softly. "Please, please try and hold onto that, no matter how much they take from you, okay?"

She didn't answer.

"Guards!" he heard the nun above shout. But he didn't let go of Martha.

When he heard the militaristic footsteps and the jangle of weaponry, that's when he let go. He kissed her cheek and dashed out through the opposite exit, knowing that it might be a while before he was allowed back.

But it didn't matter. The Martha Jones he was coming to visit was gone – he hoped temporarily. And he could have taken that sonic reading without the hug, but was worth the trouble just to have that moment, and to offer the reassurance to her that he wished someone could provide to him. He did desperately want her back, even more than he had realised until now.

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, analysing the data he'd taken from Martha, he sighed heavily once again.

The soul energy in her was now neither that of Asmei nor of Martha Jones. Nor, the TARDIS told him, was it necessarily an amalgam of both. The signature could not match any of these entities because it was depleted to the point of having become unrecognisable. More accurately, it was unreadable.

This had been his worst fear.


	13. Ahead of Time

**Ahead of Time**

The Doctor stared at the ceiling of the TARDIS and sighed.

He had work to do. He knew that he'd have to break another promise to Martha (this time, in a very real way) in order to achieve what he needed to: he would have to leave the planet to do proper research. He felt terrible, and the only consolation was that at this stage, Martha wouldn't care where he was or what he was doing, and that was a melancholy thought indeed.

He had already attempted to see what data was available on the nature of sentient planets, and there hadn't been much. If not for the ADP from the TARDIS, there would be practically nothing. And now, he wasn't looking for specific information about Asmei, he needed much more theoretical, abstract answers about the nature of _the sentience of planets_. Knowing specific characteristics of the planets themselves did not help – this was bigger. Much bigger.

This was one of those times when not having other Time Lords around could be a real pain in the derrière. He reckoned that there must have been one or two Time Lord scholars who might have dedicated their studies to this sort of thing, but other than that…

He decided to check the same informational track, the universal internet of sorts, of all data everywhere. He tried a myriad of different key words, both through typing them in and thinking them. One man's name came up over and over again: Dr. LeDohn Secopor, a human, the first man to become a so-called Theoretical Astrophysicist, to study astronomical phenomena outside of human understanding and/or practicability at the time. He had lived in the thirty-eighth century, and it was his theory that some heavenly bodies contain sentience that had got his foot in the door at the first off-world university run by humankind, thus forcing the university, and the field of physics to combine theoretical physics and astrophysics to create a sub-field.

The Doctor had heard of him in passing, but now, he reckoned, he needed his help. He had no idea how a human being of the thirty-eighth century could have discovered the concept of a sentient planet, with enough empirical evidence not to have been laughed out of his own university.

But it didn't matter. The point was, he had.

* * *

He had always wanted to visit Hawking-Flavio University, the first institution of higher learning built (for humans, by humans) off of the planet Earth. Humans had, of course, colonised other planets, et cetera, but this was the first accredited university of its kind. It was located on a large space station orbiting Earth. In the year 3752, Dr. Secopor was in his last five years as a full professor. He was at the height of his powers as an academic, but had not yet become burned out enough to set a date for retirement.

The Doctor materialised he TARDIS in an athletic centre aboard the space station on 6 September, 3752, as he reckoned it was just about the perfect time in the professor's life to ruminate with him over the nature of planetary sentience.

He found a reception desk of sorts, and asked after Dr. Secopor. He followed a few convoluted directions and found the professor's office in a dank hallway. He knocked, and was invited to enter.

"Yes?" the man asked, looking up from a map of what seemed to the Doctor to be the inner workings of an asteroid with an ant farm inside. "If you've come to ask about the mid-term…"

"No, sir," the Doctor said. "I'm not a student. But I am here to ask for your help. Are you Professor LeDohn Secopor?"

"I am, and who might you be?"

The Time Lord stepped inside the office and shut the door. "I'm the Doctor."

The professor's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?"

"Yes," the Doctor said gravely. He'd had an idea that Secopor might know who he was, given his field of study. Though, he might have heard that the Doctor is a myth, or like some thought of Shakespeare, an amalgam of different entities, all acting under the same pseudonym. (This was the general perception of the Doctor amongst human physicists throughout most of Secopor's time and in the ensuing five millennia.)

"How do I know that for sure? How do I know you're not playing games with me?"

"I guess you don't," said the Doctor. "You'll just have to take my word. Besides, I have no reason to play games – all I want to do is talk. Bounce some ideas around. I reckon you've done some extensive research in areas that are basically on the periphery of my own education."

Secopor looked at him sideways, the way a child stares at a department store Santa Claus. "Can I see your TARDIS?"

The Doctor considered this. "If you'd like, but you can't tell anyone."

"Well, without seeing it, I don't know how I'd know for sure you're the Doctor."

The Doctor extracted the sonic from his coat pocket and aimed it at a cross-sectional model of a hydrogen atom, sitting on the professor's desk. The apparatus buzzed, and the oversized subatomic particles began to rotate and revolve, following the true path around the nucleus.

The professor stared at it, and then looked back at the Doctor. "Sonic screwdriver?"

The Doctor nodded.

"What do you mean _the periphery of your own education? _How can that be?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Well, I have a friend who has been, for lack of a better word, _posessed_ by the soul of a sentient planet. Or part of the soul."

"Oh!"

"I understand theoretically what that means, and I know about the nature of energy and consciousness, and I have some theories. But now… well, she's really in trouble and I have never encountered anything like this before. I need to know more details, and I don't really have the time to work it out for myself. I could, but… I just need a sounding board. Someone in-the-know."

Secopor smiled. "I thought you'd be older."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. I'm not exactly a spring chicken, though, you know."

"Yeah, I know. I guess that was a stupid thing to say to a man who can regenerate."

"How come you don't think I'm a myth?"

"I've never thought that," said the professor. "Most of my colleagues do, but… I've read all the accounts I could find of your adventures, your life. The details are inconsistent but the internal nitty-gritty of who you are is always the same, all across time, all across the planet. I could never prove it, but… I've always felt that when the essentials stay the same, there has to be some truth."

"Well said," the Doctor agreed.

"Tell me, which of your friends is in trouble? Is it one I've heard of, I wonder?"

"Martha Jones," he answered sadly.

"Oh, the doctor. The physician I mean."

The Doctor smiled. This gave him hope. "The medical student, as I know her, but yeah."

"Pretty lady."

The Doctor's smile turned forlorn, and he nodded.

"Have you worked out yet that she's in love with you?"

"Blimey, even _that's_ been documented?"

The professor nodded, and then corrected himself. "Sorry, well, it's none of my business, eh? Anyhow, have a seat. Which planet is inhabiting Martha's mind?"

The Doctor sat, and took a deep breath. "Asmei."

"Oh, a nice one. Feminine. What are you doing about it?"

"Well, in the future – billions of years in the future – medical science at its highest eschelons is dominated by a race of humanoid cats."

"Excuse me?"

"I know, right? Anyway, they're the ones trying to help Martha."

The Doctor went on to describe, as objectively as he could, what had happened on the planet Asmei and afterwards, exactly what the PR video said, exactly how Nurse Thredd had described the treatment, and exactly what he had seen happening to Martha. Dr. Secopor listened carefully and waited for the Doctor to finish, before commenting.

When he was sure that the Doctor had told his story, he said, "It's rubbish. There's no way that what they're doing can give you back your Martha the way you knew her. It just can't happen."

"I knew it," said the Doctor calmly. "I guess I just wanted someone to tell me differently."

"Souls are energy, and once they mix, they can't be separated again. Except in very, very rare cases."

"Right." The Doctor, sighed heavily. "Right."

"Like in receptacles that exist outside of space because the anti-space can then be internally manipulated, as the laws of physics then cease to apply. Which is possible, but extremely, extremely rare. Are these humanoid cats very physics-savvy? I mean… maybe everyone is, billions of years in the future…"

"No, there's no way they're housing the souls in a receptacle outside conventional dimensional space. The TARDIS would have noticed it," said the Doctor.

There was a silence, and Secopor asked a fairly innocuous question. "How long are they saying it will take?"

"They're vague, but they promised it would be less than two years."

"More likely, it sounds like it will take only a few months, if that."

"That had occurred to me, too," the Doctor said, sitting back in his chair. "I wonder if it has occurred to Martha. Probably not, just 'cause…"

"She's not herself. What about the other women involved?" asked Dr. Secopor. "Who are they, mostly?"

"Mostly, it sounds like they are women who once lived on Asmei," answered the Doctor. "Presidents of both sectors, scientists, clergy, private citizens. Then, of course, there are militia leaders who had come to help, and there are a few Liskobians as well."

"Liskobians? Aren't they rivals?"

"Yes, but apparently there was a political group trying to make peace. The planet chose them to inhabit, in addition to her own women."

"Interesting. Well, I guess to them, two years wouldn't make much of a difference."

"How so?"

"Well," said the professor, in very much the same way as the Doctor might. "They live longer, don't they?"

The Doctor sat up again. "Yes, they do. Much, much longer."

He hadn't thought of this before as a factor, but he had known it. Martha's life span, and indeed the average human life span, was likely less than a hundred years. Asmeians and Liskobians live for upwards of five hundred, sometimes a thousand or more, depending on the circumstances. President Hadran and her scientist friends were probably already over four hundred years old.

"I'm surprised you hadn't thought of that, Doctor," Secopor said, with a smirk. "You're from Gallifrey, for goodness' sake. You know the effect an ensouled planet has on its people. How old are you?"

"Nine hundred and three!" he answered standing up with a fluorish. "Oh, my God, I'm nine hundred and three! Gallifrey had a soul! Only… it was dissipated along with the Time Lords… long story. Really long."

"I'll have that story off you someday," Secopor said with a smirk.

"Oh, I'm such an idiot."

"Yep. Maybe you _are_ in impostor."

"No, but I'm so glad I came here!" cried the Doctor.

"Why? How does knowing this help Martha?"

The Doctor sat again. "Well, it doesn't," he said, coming back to the ground. "But it does tell me what the nuns want with the soul of Asmei."

"Sorry, the nuns?"

"Yes, the humanoid cat nurses, they're all nuns."

"Oh. Of course they are. How silly of me."

"Life!"

"You've lost me, Doctor."

"A sentient planet's soul has the power to sustain life, almost indefinitely! Certainly beyond that of most of the humanoids they treat! Oh, why had I not thought of this? It had always been two separate things in my mind, the planet's sentience, and the hard science of ecosystems and biology. Only once have I ever had occasion to think of them in tandem, and that was when I was at school!" The Doctor was shouting again. "So, once again, the cat nuns, they mean well (sort of), but their plan is to sacrifice unwitting women's lives toward what _they_ perceive as the greater good, and it's totally unethical!"

"So, you'll have to stop them," said the professor, quite matter-of-factly. "But it still doesn't help Martha."

* * *

The Doctor and the professor sat in a small room with two cups of tea, once again, ruminating over the implications of the nurses on New Earth trying to use the reconstituted soul of Asmei to gain the power to sustain life.

"Do you think they can reconstitute the soul without all the pieces?" asked the Doctor, already having formed his own opinion. "Because I happen to know for a fact that they don't have all the pieces."

"Yes, as long as they have a majority, soul energy can be self-replicating. Can be – isn't always. If they can gain enough momentum with the women communing as you've described it, then yes, I'd say it's very likely they'll be able to put the soul back together. But of course you know it won't be a pure soul any longer."

"No, I know, it will have the souls of all the women in the mix," the Doctor nodded. "A bunch of soulless… sisters, wives, mothers… friends."

"What will they do with their bodies?"

"I don't know," the Doctor muttered, his eyes half-covered with his fingers. "They won't be dead, they'll just be like zombies. I reckon they'll dispose of them somehow. Probably use them for a body farm or something…"

"Okay, stop. I don't want you going there. Doctor, I know a little about you, and I know that if there's anyone who can find a way to distill soul energy in a conventional receptacle, it's you. I'll help in any way I can, but my knowledge, as my title as Theoretical Astrophysicist would suggest, is theoretical. I've never actually put my hands on a receptacle containing soul energy. I wouldn't really know how to go about it if I could."

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and groaned. He didn't know how long he'd been thinking about this, but he felt exhausted. He stared at the ceiling for a few moments, with the universe, as usual bouncing around in his brain.

Matter. Space. Time. Consciousness. Love. Knowledge. Communion. Energy.

None of it could be isolated from the others, and, he felt, that's the way it should be. This very clever human sitting with him now, across a white formica table, had been discussing the necessity of distilling these things from one another. Secopor thought that the Doctor might be the only man who could work out how to do it, but the more the Doctor thought about it, the less like a good idea it seemed.

And yet, he knew he had to do it because he wanted Martha back. He wanted _his _Martha back – not a reasonable facsimile, not Martha with some changes. Martha Jones, his friend, the very one that he met in a hospital on a weird rainy morning, and whom he invited on a journey with him one night in a damp alley.

But the universe didn't work that way, and in his Time Lord gut, he knew it. It's all intertwined, and it was the healthy order of the cosmos. All things exist in tandem, all energy reaches out and adopts all other energy. Consciousnesses cannot be separated once they touch. Normally, this was a beautiful thing, much in the way that we as individuals are forever changed by those we meet and become close to. And somewhere deep down, the Doctor knew that Martha's disturbing spurning of him was a product (or at least a by-product) of her soul becoming dented, and yet somehow more whole, because of the soul of Asmei.

She had said that it was like nothing else she'd ever experienced, the communion with the other ladies. But all she had revealed of the planet's presence inside of her was some expression of that old, impossible knowledge of the universe. And she had said she felt crowded. The Doctor could imagine how that must feel, but to him, it didn't feel new. He frequently felt crowded within his own mind, and had long since become one with the logic of the universe.

"So what's it like for Martha?" he asked aloud.

"Excuse me?" asked professor Secopor.

The Doctor was somewhat surprised that he had spoken aloud. He sat up straight and looked at the professor with inquisitive eyes.

"What must it be like for a human being to have a planet in her head?" he asked.

Secopor's eyes drifted to the linoleum on the floor. "Oh, I would imagine… it hurts."

"She got a headache that she said felt like it was going to split her head open," the Doctor remembered. "But then it seemed to fade away, and all that was left was this creepy _wisdom_."

The professor seemed to ruminate over this. "Did she close her eyes, as if she was channelling from some little pocket of consciousness deep within?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. He sat forward in his chair. "A little pocket of consciousness? Do you think that Asmei's consciousness is compartmentalised in her?"

"Well, how much easier would it be, if it were?" asked the professor with a smirk. "But I doubt it – at least not literally, in a way that would make it easier to remove. No, I would think that in spite of the evidence, the soul of Asmei is actually a very small part of Martha's consciousness, or at least that's how it started. There's a mechanism in all of our brains, minds, consciousnesses, whatever, that turns inward when we are problem-solving. Martha's just naturally went deeper in those moments when she was seeking answers to questions she normally couldn't, had to seek out very small bits of vapor inside her mind."

"Bits of vapor inside her mind," the Doctor repeated. "That's a good way to put it."

"Vapor is thin and ruminates about, yes? Sometimes you don't know it's there until your attention is drawn to it. But when lots of vapor comes together and condenses, it becomes liquid. So when the women come together and commune, the vapor condenses… and liquid is much more dense, if you'll forgive the metaphor. And you can't just pull it apart and turn it back into vapor at that point. And the more they commune, the more liquid it brings."

"Martha's brain is now housing a metaphorical liquid soul of Asmei," the Doctor mused. "And the rest of her knowledge is being drowned. Everything she _was _is gurgling under a flood of a feminine planet, fundamentally kind, but bitter and scorned, destroyed by a male planet, maybe even a little mad as a result."

"Hm," the professor sighed. "Drowning who she was. That's probably a very good metaphor within a metaphor. I would imagine that her head swims most of the time now. I would imagine that she doesn't see very clearly, since she is physiologically not equipped to handle this kind of energy overtaking her conscious mind."

"More and more, she's probably got the cosmos at the forefront of her thoughts. Femininity, life. Whatever planets think of."

"And Martha Jones is still in there, you just have to dive down deeper to find her. And extract her without bringing any of the water with you. Or something."

"Blimey," said the Doctor, pulling one hand down over his face. "This is going to hurt."


	14. More Soul

**More Soul**

Professor LeDohn Secopor stared into the green light at the centre of the Time Rotor, with a goofy look on his face. "Why do I feel so at peace doing this?"

"High level telepathic field," the Doctor answered. "Fortunately, it's temporary, so you can go back to your inner turmoil as soon as you look away."

Secopor looked away, and back at the Doctor. "Turmoil is good."

"I know," the Doctor said sadly. "That's what I tried to tell Martha. To hold onto all that rubbish, the uncertainty, the pain… but it didn't work."

"Of course it didn't," answered the professor, now looking back into the Time Rotor. "Your mere words are not as strong as the communion of a great soul."

"Yeah, well," the doctor muttered. "I didn't expect them to take her out of herself so quickly and… efficiently."

At that moment, and alarm sounded.

"What? What did I do?" asked Secopor, his hands held up at his shoulders in a disarmed fashion.

"Nothing. It's a distress call," sighed the Doctor.

How many times in his life had the Doctor been derailed by a distress call? How many times had he felt that he wasn't going to get distracted from the task at-hand, only to find that he could not leave innocents to fight the bad guys without his help?

"Four-thousand, five-hundred and thirty-two times," the TARDIS answered by way of the computer screen.

"Thanks. It was a rhetorical question, but thanks." The Doctor said aloud. He glanced at the incoming call information to see if it was a ship or a space station or… "Damn. It's a planet."

Another entire planet was calling for help. Not just a ship's crew or a team of specialists, but men, women, children, old folks, people who couldn't walk and everything in-between. He sighed. "Obviously these poor souls haven't heard of the great job I did saving Asmei and everyone in its path."

He didn't want the call to take him off-road, but he knew the longer he tried to ignore the annoying repetitive alarm, the more guilty he'd feel. And he reminded himself that Martha, the _real_ Martha, would want him to help a flagging planet, no matter what he had to put aside to do it.

Besides, turning off the siren from a call like this was like a snooze button. It wasn't going to stop recurring until it was too late.

He pressed the button that allowed a recorded message to filter through the TARDIS' sound system.

"_Doctor, I hope you can hear me_," a male voice said. The voice was young, but desperate and breathy like someone who had been running. "_This is Chancellor Feazell, leader of the High Council of the planet Gretat Trepicca. We are coming under fire… from where or whom, I do not know. The Cosmological Intelligence Squad tells us that the very fabric of the planet is in danger – we have identified some advanced incendiary technology. We Trepiccians are peace-loving, as is our planet, and we have no idea why someone would be trying to blow us up! Already our… oh, no, no!" the man said, and the Doctor could hear explosions in the background. "I have to go, Doctor! If you're out there, please hurry! Our military has already been taken down by…_"

The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

"Who are you kidding?" asked Secopor. "You know you're going to go."

"Yeah. I know."

"I'll leave you to it," the professor said. "Thank you, Doctor. This was an experience I'll never forget."

The two of them shook hands.

"Not a word," the Doctor reminded him.

"I swear – not a word," Secopor promised. "And hey, give me a ring if you need anymore help. I'm curious as to how this thing goes." He gave a little salute, and then made his way to the door. He ducked out, leaving the Doctor alone.

He checked the time stamp on the call. It was coming from very close to the time in which Martha was cooling her heels with the cat nuns in the Soul Inreach wing, slightly less than five billion years into the future from where he had come to visit Professor Secopor.

He frowned. That seemed like an awfully big coincidence.

Then he realised something. "Oh! Blimey! Play that message again!" He typed in a code, and the sound system came up once again, and played the desperate narrative once more.

And there it was. _We Trepiccians are peace-loving, as is our planet._

The speaker was making a distinction between the people who live on the planet, and the planet itself, as though all parties involved had their own opinion. Another sentient planet coming under heavy fire, in the same time period?

He supposed it was _possible_ that it was just a reallyuncanny coincidence, but not bloody likely.

He sent what amounted to a text message to the Trepiccans letting them know he was on his way, but he wouldn't be landing on the planet straight away, but rather doing some intelligence in the airspace round the planet first.

* * *

He stood in the doorway of the TARDIS and looked down upon Gretat Trepicca. Little explosions were happening all over the place, and he could picture the chaos that must be ensuing below. He noted that it seemed like large sections of land had been torn apart, broken into islands now adrift. This was bad, but it wasn't going to blow up the planet. It would damage it, surely, but not destroy it completely. If the Cosmological Intelligence Squad was to be believed, then there was something much, much worse in store for them, though they had not been able to ascertain the source of the aggression. He wondered what sort of evidence the Squad had, and how they had come by it.

The Doctor went back to the console and manually flew the vessel round the planet, looking on the radar screen for anomalies. After about fifteen minutes, he found it. A large field of black on the screen, marring the landscape of an otherwise untouched span of continent. He hovered above it and got as close to the planet's atmosphere as he could, without alerting anyone to his presence. Then he went back to the door to look for himself.

And on the green below, there was a big circle of purple flames.

"Mm, clever, clever," he muttered to himself.

Whoever was attacking Gretat Trepicca was creating a diversion with the little explosions so that this could go unnoticed: Violabrule Fire, burrowing to the centre of the planet, probably to plant explosives. This incendiary product was notoriously impervious to water or wind, and did not need any particular sort of gas to burn. It was the unquenchable fire, now digging a hole to the core of a sentient planet. The Doctor wasn't sure whether the planet's aspect was masculine or feminine, but he reckoned he'd probably better get the hell out of Dodge before detonation this time, just in case Gretat Trepicca was male. He didn't want to wind up in the same mess as Martha.

Fortunately, the Squad _had_ noticed the unquenchable fire, though there was nothing they could do about it.

The question still remained: who was reponsible, and where were they? The TARDIS had picked up no signals from any other ship nearby, and no energy sources coming from any neighbouring planets, asteroids or stars.

Back at the console, the Doctor typed in commands that would help the TARDIS to detect any cloaked technology, or light-deflective surfaces which would render the underlying matter invisible.

He raised his eyebrows as the shape of a large spherical ship came into view on the screen. From it radiated heat signatures from missile after missile, aimed at the planet below, and the big, ominous purple streak maintaining the Violabrule.

He couldn't tell who or what was inside, and even if he could, he doubted that he'd gain any kind of real intelligence from it.

"Okay, well," he said aloud. "Into the belly of the beast I go."

* * *

The TARDIS materialised in a small room resembling a broom closet, and when the Doctor exited, he stepped in a bucket of something. He kicked the goo off his trainers and just hoped that it wasn't a corrosive substance that the janitors had scraped off the engine and they were just waiting to dock in a place where it was safe to dispose of hazardous materials.

He thanked whatever deity was listening that he had landed where he had intended, in a place where no-one could immediately see him. He crept forward toward a door. Some light escaped into the closet through the small gap between the door and the floor. He searched for a doorknob, intending to open it just a crack, to see what he could see before venturing into danger.

But there was no doorknob. A cursory scan with the sonic screwdriver revealed a handprint plate on the other side of the door which allowed in-and-out access. He manipulated the mechanism through the wall and the door slid open a smidge.

The good news was that as far as he could tell, no one had noticed the door opening.

The bad news was that this particular "broom closet" was just off the main control room of the ship – he had to tread extremely lightly. Outside, he could see a large, circular room, lined with what looked like black onyx walls and floors. In the centre of the room, there was a _Star Trek_-style bridge, where there was perched someone overlooking the proceedings, dressed in a white robe with a pointy headdress. Various others sat at tech and comm stations round the room, though they were all dressed in black. Their headdresses were more modest, more like pillbox hats that covered their heads.

"Monsignor," someone said, someone male, and very near to where the Doctor was peeking out through a slat. So close, in fact, that it made him recoil slightly from his position with his nose right in the opening. He waited a moment, and then reclaimed his position.

"Yes, Officer Hegg," said the white-robed being. He turned to face the voice which had spoken to him, and the Doctor practically choked, trying not to gasp with surprise and realisation.

White-robed Monsignor was, in fact, a cat. A humanoid cat dressed in priest's clothing. More like the Pope's clothing, really.

A few of the others turned toward the voice as well, and the Doctor could see that they were all more or less dressed like priests, each with a black garment and a white collar.

In all of his dealings with the cat nuns, the Doctor had never considered that there might be cat priests – males of the order. Except it seemed that instead of being medical professionals, these priests were military officers.

And they were attacking the peace-loving planet of Gretat Trepicca!

"What the hell?" the Doctor whispered to himself.

"Do you want us to plant the dummy explosives?" asked Hegg, the priest/officer who had spoken to the Monsignor.

The white-clad priest did not immediately answer. For a moment, he looked thoughtful, and then he turned his back.

"Officer Sine," he called out. "What say you?"

Sine answered, "I say they are not needed, Monsignor. The diversion is working – the cities are in chaos trying to manage the explosions."

Another priest spoke then, "With all due respect to Officer Sine, sir, I would say that the dummy explosives _are_ needed. The Trepiccians have already sent out a distress call saying that they have identified the Violabrule column. They understand that their planet is at stake, and are watching. I say, if we don't show that we mean business, the citizens will not attempt to leave."

Sine chimed in, "Apologies, Monsignor. I was not privy to this distress call. In that case, I agree with Officer Ain."

The Monsignor's voice dropped an octave. "Officer Ain, to whom have they sent a distress call?"

Nervously, Ain typed something into the control panel in front of him and waited. "I can't tell, exactly. It's a time-transcendent signal, meant to…"

"Yes, I know what that means," said the Monsignor. "Meant to find its target no matter where he or she may be in time. The question is who were they trying to reach?"

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes while Officer Ain attempted to find out, and the Doctor held his breath.

"Well, I can't tell," said Ain. "The recipient is unclear. Listen for yourself."

At that point, the message the Doctor had heard only a few minutes before played loudly in the control room of the spherical ship.

"_Doctor, I hope you can hear me. This is Chancellor Feazell, leader of the High Council of the planet Gretat Trepicca. We are coming under fire… from where or whom, I do not know. The Cosmological Intelligence Squad tells us that the very fabric of the planet is in danger – we have identified some advanced incendiary technology. We Trepiccians are peace-loving, as is our planet, and we have no idea why someone would be trying to blow us up! Already our… oh, no, no… I have to go, Doctor! If you're out there, please hurry! Our military has already been taken down by…"_

"See?" said Ain, ending transmission. "It just says 'doctor.' It doesn't give a name."

The Monsignor let out a growl of frustration, and he tore down the stairs on the side of his bridge on-high and grabbed for a comm device.

"Nurse Thredd," he called into the handpiece. "Mother Superior? Nurse Thredd, can you hear me?"

A moment or two passed, and a familiar voice came over the comm. "Monsignor? Is that you?"

"Yes, Mother Thredd."

"Good to hear your voice. How goes the mission?"

"Mother Thredd, I have a question. Remember when we set off from New Earth last week, and you told me about an operative who you were pretty sure was trying to sabotage your operation?"

"Yes."

"The man whose friend is undergoing an extraction in your Inreach facility?"

"Yes, Monsignor."

"What is his name?"

A pause while Nurse Thredd took a breath. "He's called the Doctor. Why do you ask?"

"The Trepiccians have sent him a distress signal. And based on what you have told me, he will be on his way, if he is not there on the planet already."

Another pause. When Thredd's voice came back on the comm, it was soft and angry. "Abort, Monsignor."

"Excuse me, Mother Superior," said the Monsignor. "What did you say?"

"I said abort! Cease all fire, and get the Core Driver Craft out of there!"

"You want us to stand down completely?"

"Yes! Stop shooting and leave the vicinity. If the Doctor should find out that you're there and why, it will jeopardise the entire Soul Inreach programme. We cannot afford that."

"Mother Thredd, with all due respect, why not just cut your losses and give him back his friend so he'll leave you alone?"

"Because the silly thing is too far gone to recognise any sort of discretion."

The Doctor gritted his teeth.

"Why did you let it get this far?"

"Monsignor, do I tell you how to fly your ship?"

"As a matter of fact, you do," he argued.

She sighed. "Fine. The reason we've let it get this far is _for the mission_. For the programme. The more pieces of Asmei we have, the better chance we have of reassembling the soul. And without her, without the Doctor's friend Martha, we would _barely_ have a majority. There's still many pieces we have yet to recover, so we need her. And for another thing, Nurse Hame said that the Doctor was a friend to us. She misled us. Unwittingly, perhaps, but she misled us. She did not understand the extent of the Doctor's arrogance and persistence. Both are extremely formidable. That is why you must withdraw. If he finds you, he will stop you. And if he stops you, he will stop us."

"Yes, ma'am. But it will take several hours to power up the Core Driver Craft, and turn it round sufficiently so as not to crash into the planet."

"Well, get it under way, Monsignor. If the Doctor is on his way, you don't want to be anywhere near there."


	15. A Positive ID

**A Positive ID**

He already knew, without even asking, why this particular flight crew of priests was attacking a sentient planet. And without even trying, he had been able to thwart them, and they were headed home. He _could_ just turn round, get back in his TARDIS and leave, without letting his presence be known, letting them think that they'd got away with it so far, that the redoubtable Doctor had not become wise to their dastardly scheme. It would have been the smart thing to do, to give them a false sense of security, so that perhaps he could use this knowledge to surprise them later…

But hearing the Mother Superior order the flight crew to withdraw from the attack simply on the prospect that the Doctor might have received the distress call, and hearing her tell the Monsignor that the Doctor's arrogance is extremely formidable… well, he almost couldn't help himself. He had to live up to his reputation.

But the real reason? Hearing her so flippantly refuse to return Martha to him simply because she is "too far gone," made him red-hot with anger. These oh-so-charming clerics were _not_ getting away with this.

He opened the closet door a smidge more, and stepped out. Everyone in the room was engaged, presumably, in various acts of withdrawing from this attack.

"So, Officer Hegg, old boy," said the Doctor, placing one hand on the shoulder of the cat whose voice he had first heard in this room. "What are you getting up to?"

The officer turned to face him, and a look of alarm registered in his eyes. "Monsignor!" he called out. "We have an intruder."

Immediately, all eyes focused on the Doctor, who shoved one hand in his pocket rather coolly, and waved at the room with the other hand. "Hiya."

"Interloper, state your name and purpose!" demanded the Monsignor.

"Oh, you… _cats!_ Always business, business, business. Whatever happened to _hello, how are you, would you like a hot beverage?_ Or better still, how about a chorus of _Memory_? It's been a good long time since I've been properly serenaded."

"Arm yourselves, officers," the Monsignor called to his troops. "Interloper, I give you one last chance to state your name and purpose."

"Okay, in a minute," insisted the Doctor, who began sauntering about the room, looking over the shoulders of the navigation officers, now all aiming weapons at him, investigating their machinery. "But first, why don't you tell me: what is a Core Driver Craft, exactly? I mean, _core_ means the centre of something. _Driver_ indicates that it controls something, and _craft_, in this context, is probably a ship. Eh?"

A long silence hung in the air as the Monsignor eyed the stranger with contempt and the officers waited for orders.

The Doctor stopped for a moment to examine the controls at one of the stations. The officer that normally worked that station muttered nervously, "Er, sir, stand down. Stand down r-right now. State your purpose, please."

"Oh, relax," said the Doctor. "You're not in charge, you don't have to do that."

"Sir…"

"So, I can see here, Monsignor, that you have teleportation and rematerialisation capabilities upon this ship," the Doctor yelled, over the voice of the protesting officer. "And I saw you digging a Violabrule path into the innards of the planet. So I would guess, given the evidence, that this _craft_ will teleport and rematerialise at the _core_ of the planet, whereupon you lot will then _drive_ the planet and all of its systems. Yes?"

The Monsignor continued to bore holes into him. "I do not comment," he growled.

"Oh, well, I'd call that a big, fat _yes._ Which, on the up-side, means you were never planning on destroying the planet, but on the down-side, you would be replacing any physical core that it already has, any magnetic field. That will take away the planet's power to regulate its own ecosystems. You're rendering the planet basically incontinent – pardon the pun. Which is exceptionally cruel, when you consider that this planet has _a soul. _You will render the soul useless and oppressed, like… like a band of religious outer-space Nazis with retractable claws! That's what you are!"

"Officer Mill, get me the Mother Superior. Now!" cried the Monsignor, without taking his eyes off the Doctor.

"I mean, taking advantage of a bad situation on Asmei is one thing, but instigating an interplanetary disaster for your own gain? That's truly terrible, you know? What, do you think you can start a soul-extraction industry? Thought you could do it and not get caught?"

The Monsignor merely stared.

"You thought you could control this planet, and harness its life-sustaining power, on the order of the nuns, who _clearly_ wear the pants in this relationship. For shame!"

"Mill!"

"I mean, for shame about the harnessing-its-power thing. Not about letting the nuns wear pants. Far be it from me to decide who gives whom the orders."

"Monsignor?" the Mother Superior's voice said, once again, coming through the comm. "What is it? I am a very busy cat."

"I understand, Mother Thredd. Just one question: what does the Doctor look like?"

"Monsignor, please. I cannot recall. He looks like a human – they're all alike. Male aspect rather than female, I suppose, lighter skin rather than darker, but other than that… I cannot say."

"Well, put his companion on the comm!"

"Excuse me?" she said.

"Pardon my tone, Mother, I am simply very concerned. I believe the Doctor is aboard our craft."

"What?" she cried out. "Are you sure?"

"No! That's why I want you to identify him!"

The Doctor chimed in, "What? No, the Doctor? Not me. No, no, I'm… Heironymous Merkin from the Republic of Whoville. Prime Minister Jean-Luc Picard sent me to do reconnaissance work."

"Mother Superior, can you confirm his voice?" asked the Monsignor. He had still never taken his eyes off the time Lord.

"No, I cannot. Please stand by – I will fetch Martha Jones."

A silent standoff ensued, with a Time Lord and a Monsignor staring at one another with intense eyes, and about a dozen officers standing by, armed and ready to fire.

The Mother Superior's voice came over once more. "All right dear, just listen, and tell me if you hear the Doctor's voice."

"Okay," he heard Martha say, rather faintly. His hearts beat faster, knowing he had now pulled her into this end of the battle, though now she was perhaps working against him.

"Engage him, Monsignor," the Mother Superior said. "Make him speak."

"Now, stranger, who did you say you were?" asked the white-clad priest.

The Doctor said nothing. They just continued to stare each other down.

"Doctor, if it is you, you must speak. Don't be a coward," said the Mother Superior.

"The Doctor does not respond to attacks upon his bravery," Martha said quietly from somewhere in the background. "It is not where his sensitivity lies."

"Where does it lie, then?" Thredd asked her. The Doctor could hear her gritting her teeth.

There was a pause. "In love. Friendship. The plight of innocents." She said it as thought it were tedious to think about, as though the Doctor was _such a fool_.

The Doctor cursed inwardly. Her tone offended him somewhat, but more importantly, she was bringing attention to the fact that _she_ was his sensitive spot. She was not doing herself any favours.

"Doctor, if it is you," the Mother Superior said. "Then, in your _foolish_ sensitivity, know this: Miss Jones is valuable to us, but not so valuable that we would hesitate to harm her in order to flush you out."

He remained silent.

"If the Doctor does not speak in the next ten seconds, we will sacrifice Martha Jones."

The Doctor stayed silent, but knew he could not do so for long.

"We will remove her soul, and the soul of Asmei, and use her physical person as we see fit. We have organ farms, working neurochemistry experiments… even human sexuality labs. The Doctor knows we are more than capable_._"

Silence.

"Very well," said the Mother Superior. "So sorry, dear Martha. I regret to lose you, but it appears that your Doctor is not as sensitive as we thought. Moreover, I think that keeping you with us has proven more trouble than it is worth. If your Doctor is going to be constantly at us, then I think it might be time to…"

"Martha, it's me, love," he said. "Just tell the Mother Superior it's me."

"I think it's him," Martha said. "I think it's the Doctor."

"You think?" scolded the Mother Superior. "Martha, I need you to be sure."

"Well…" Martha paused. "It sounds like him. I suppose."

"Martha, what do you need me to say, so that you can be sure?"

"I…" he heard her say. "I don't know."

"Your mother's name is Francine. Your brother is Leo, sister is Tish. You were born in London in 1984. You're doing your triage rotation at Royal Hope Hospital."

She did not respond.

"Your father is dating a woman named Annalise, who's about your age. You feel that she's searching for a father figure," he began shouting, machine-gun style. "Your mum is overprotective and hates me for distracting you from your medical studies. Your favourite piece of clothing is a red leather jacket that your ex-boyfriend bought for you two Christmases ago! Last month, you had a nightmare that a slice of sausage and mushroom pizza was chasing you through the Italian Painting wing of the Louvre…"

"Mother, I'm just not sure," Martha said.

The Doctor's hearts sank. She didn't recognise any of the information he had fed her. More accurately, she may have recognised it, but did not realise the significance of it. The real Martha would not only know his voice without question, but would know that in this situation _only he_ would know all of that stuff about her.

Of course, the real Martha would never sell him out, and wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

"Nurse Thredd, it's me, okay? It's the Doctor, I confess it. Now just leave Martha alone. Leave her out of this!"

He heard the Mother Superior whisper, "Martha, dear, go back to your room and put on your Espriband, all right? I will see you in an hour for communal time."

"Mother Superior, how should we proceed?" asked the Monsignor.

She sighed. "Continue to withdraw from the attack. Nothing has changed."

"All of that rigamarole with Miss Jones, that was for nothing?" the white priest wanted to know.

"Alas, no," Thredd replied. "It was to identify the Doctor definitively. We know where he is, we know the game, we know his disposition, etc. If we can contain him, then we can resume, and/or pick up one of the other projects currently in the works. This planet is hardly our only hope at this stage, Monsignor."

"Very well," the Monsignor declared. "Men, continue the business of withdrawal." All officers turned to their work stations.

"Meanwhile, Monsignor, the Doctor possesses a teleporting craft," she answered. "A blue box, according to Miss Jones. He will be able to escape easily, unless you seize him now."

"Seize… him," the Monsignor began, and trailed off. He turned about the room and realized the Doctor had already gone. And though he didn't know what he was hearing, he listened then to the TARDIS gears ringing from within the nearby broom closet, bringing the Time Lord out of the line of fire.

* * *

The Doctor knew he hadn't really helped anything, other than to confirm what he already knew, to let the "bad guys" know he was fully aware and involved (which may or may not be a good thing) and of course to stroke his already rather considerable ego.

He seriously wondered now, as he fled from the cat priests' spherical ship, just how much _worse_ he had made things. And, how much even worse he was _about_ to make things.

He wished against wish now that he had not brought Martha here and let her stay. It had gone so far, so fast, that not even _he_ had been ready for it. He'd thought he'd have a lot more time to ascertain the dangers and get Martha out of there in an orderly fashion if need-be. But, he supposed now that it was the nature of wrongdoing that it was done quickly, so as not to give the good guys any time to change their minds.

Still, from Martha's point of view, it had only been about three weeks. Even Professor Secopor thought the reunification of Asmei's soul would take at least a few months. Perhaps there was still a way to extract Martha, without having to "dive" too deep, as they had discussed. The Doctor chose to believe that Martha herself was buried fairly shallow in the lake of Asmei, and that seeing what the cat nuns, her "benefactors," were up to might actually get her to come to the surface. The essence of Martha Jones is merciful. She would not want a good planet or any good people sacrificed for the kind of greater good that gave one group so much power. Especially if she heard about the flight crew of priests, revelations from Secopor…

He knew he might be lying to himself just to justify a fairly rash action, but then, he had always been fairly comfortable with that part of himself.

So, how to shake Martha loose, starting with getting her out of the facility. He had already asked her if she wanted to leave – so what if he didn't give her a choice this time?


	16. Priorities

**Priorities**

Martha Jones was dreaming. Though, she wore her Espriband, of course, and was communing in her sleep with her soul sisters.

She saw a woman in a white coat. A lab coat, it seemed like. A clever woman. Dark-skinned, dark-eyes, sparking with inquisitiveness, knowledge and idealism. She stood in a group of people like her, all young, all wanting to change the world.

A man, bored of his profession, spoke to them and insulted their intelligence. In the dream, Martha could not work out what he was saying, but he knew that the woman, the _medical student_ she was seeing, could understand him and jumped at the chance to _think_, work it out, impress.

She shook her head at the group of students. She shook her head at the man.

All at once, she tried to push them away because she was ashamed. She could feel her sisters watching, seeing what she was seeing. She had fought so hard back then, to do her studying, learn what she needed to know, to be the best and the brightest. She had to work twice as hard anyone white, and anyone male, just to be to be told, "yes, you can." And today, all of that meant nothing.

"It's all right, Martha, look," her sisters seemed to say as she pushed away from the medical student and her life. "We all have things we try to hang onto."

Next, she saw, in a swirling pool of images, a powerful woman in a suit, someone who was responsible for millions of lives. She saw a woman with a weapon and a stern look on her face. She saw other women in lab coats, women with their children and husbands, teaching school, praying, running races…

And she felt they were all her. They were all things she had done.

And yet, she had done none of it, and none of it was important.

Least of all, the medical student.

She swam in the unimportance of it. She floated atop the dream, the women buried beneath the ocean of togetherness, and she could feel her sisters holding her aloft.

And when they let go, she slipped under again.

The medical student was there, and Martha recognised her. This time, though, she was wearing a red jacket and was running alongside a man. A tall man in a blue suit and red shoes. A handsome man with a loud voice and a lot of unruly dark hair. Her heart soared to run with him, and it felt as though it would stop each time he looked away from her in longing for another. She was bitter, more often than not, but could not shake the love that she felt, and always knew that this man was worth whatever danger, whatever soul-crushing sadness he could doll out.

But she felt alone this time. She tried to hide from the man, the girl in the red jacket, from the life, the friendship they shared, even the love she felt for him. But her sisters were not there. No-one was there to tell her it was okay. No-one offered guidance this time.

The Mother Superior's voice echoed in the deep. "_Doctor, a __masculine presence would be a hindrance to the process. Your constant presence in Martha's mind, even, will be a hindrance to the process…"_

Another voice, one of her sisters' voices, said, "_Oscillating energy, the consciousness of a body, is like a beacon across the cosmos, to those who have a facsimile, or some other reasonable replication of the pseudo-instinctual magnetising technique known to said energy."_

Other voices joined in. _"Planetary harmony…"_

"_No physical contact…"_

"_In the the universe, as compared with the motherhood of planets and stars and millennia, as compared with the spousing of heavenly entities… I am small."_

"_The communion of sisters…"_

"_We walk the line every day…"_

"_Love is individuality. It isolates me. I want to be whole."_

And then, the Doctor's voice._ "I've been thinking a lot about you… about us, and what it all means… I can't fully say for sure what I'm feling, I just know that life without you hasn't been easy. I don't know anything except that I need you. I need you back in my life, and not just because I hate travelling alone. It's a different kind of loneliness now… like much more personal, and it's something I haven't allowed myself to…"_

The medical student sighed, her heart leapt.

Martha, though, she just found the whole thing tedious.

What adolescent angst was this? How dare such a person, a woman who is part of a grand, beautiful soul, be caught up in something so selfish, petty and irrelevant? _Pining_ for a masculine presence? _Desiring_ his touch? Focusing precious energies upon gaining his acceptance? Who was he to decide whether she was worthy? Who was he to force her to feel at all? Who was he?

Little by little, she felt herself floating once again to the top of the dream, and felt her sisters and their clean souls rejoining her…

* * *

"Martha!" he whispered as he shook her gently. She didn't respond, so he reached up and ripped the Espriband off her head. He tried again. "Martha?"

She stirred, moaned a little and opened her eyes. As his face came into focus, her face distorted into a stance of disbelief.

"Doctor, you shouldn't be here," she said flatly, with a completely normal volume.

"Yeah, well, I have a mission to accomplish, and it's not as difficult to get in and out of here through the back door, as you might think. Though it does happen to be the middle of the night, but you wouldn't think they would reduce security quite so much. Perhaps they're underfunded. Or overconfident."

She sat up. "I think you should go."

"No, not yet," he said. "It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it still wasn't easy. As it turns out, I make a very tall, very awkward nun, even from the back. Let's just leave it at that."

"What do you want?"

"Let's go for a walk."

* * *

Martha was no longer "his" Martha, but she was susceptible to suggestion, especially if it didn't happen to interfere with communal time, or the larger picture of the shared soul. So, he had helped her into her robe, out of her Espriband, and taken her hand. Now they walked among the corridors of the facility. She stared straight ahead, showing him no attention nor interest whatsoever, though not objecting to the hand-holding. He was nervously glancing her way, waiting to see if she would work against him, if she was lying in wait, if she had somehow alerted her sisters to his presence and was siccing the nuns on him telepathically.

But nothing happened for a long while. They just followed the labyrinth of tan-coloured walls and white doors. He was very careful to make it seem as though they were wandering aimlessly, but the Doctor absolutely had an aim.

"Hm, let's see what's through this door," he said contrivedly, sonicking the bar before pushing it open. He was disabling the alarm.

"This is an emergency exit," she said.

"Yeah, well, who wants to use the front, eh? Where's the adventure in that?"

"If you wish to accompany me on a walk, the corridors are quite sufficient, thank you."

"Nah, come on," he said, taking her arm.

"Doctor, are you trying to kidnap me from the facility?" she asked, way too loudly for comfort. "Because you know that is not permitted."

"Shhh," he encouraged. "Martha, keep your voice down. I'm not kidnapping you. I'm spiriting you away. Rescuing you. There's a big difference and it's for your own good!"

She took a giant step back from him and put out her hand to keep him at a distance. "Doctor, I know that you think you know what's best for everyone. But you are wrong – you have always been wrong."

"Martha, shhh…"

"It is the essence of your Time Lord energy, and your _masculine_ presence. You think you are protecting, but you are only exhibiting your arrogance. You think you are wise, but you are a fool. Perhaps the greatest fool in the univerrse, since you think you're the cleverest in the universe."

"Okay, Martha, let's talk about this outside," he suggested, taking her hand again. The forceful, loud tone of her voice had begun to make him nervous. If any of the doors in this corridor actually had anyone asleep inside, they surely would have heard her by now.

She yanked her hand away from him and shouted "No! If you were truly wise or clever, you would see that it is wrong and cruel to take me away from my sisters! We are a communal soul, not to be interfered with by any _man._"

"Okay, don't think of me as a man, then," he said, still trying to get her to whisper. "Think of me just as your friend. In your eyes, I am sexless."

"Oh," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It makes a mockery of me as a woman for you to presume that you could ever be sexless to me. The simple fact that you think you can change my mind with such trifles, with such condescending words just shows how male you are."

He sighed. "Oh, Martha."

"Males. You plunder in, thrust in, invade our bodies, but before you can do that, you must separate." She made a gesture with her index and middle finger that let him know, in no uncertain terms, what she was discussing.

He raised his eyebrows. "Whoa. Now…"

"Always in competition. No wonder you fragment our souls."

"I'm not trying to fragment anything that shouldn't be fragmented!"

"And only one of you can win," she went on. "Billions are released, and race for the prize, but only a single unit makes it through the barrier. And the rest must die. It is how life begins, and it is the essence of male. This is why life is so cold and hollow. Males."

"Yeah, we definitely have to get you out of here," he muttered, now watching her with resigned interest.

"You think you can fix everything. You stole me away from my family because you thought you could fix me. You took me away from everything I knew, and then broke my heart."

He said nothing. He didn't bother pointing out that it hadn't taken much convincing to get her to embark on that adventure with him.

"And you're doing it now," she said. By now her voice was calm. She was deadly serious and would not break eye-contact, practically would not blink. "You think if I can just be with you, all of my problems will be solved. Well, I don't have any problems, Doctor. I have never felt this happy or complete or free. I have a new family now, and my old life, my old love, is irrelevant. This is home."

"Martha," he whispered. He stepped toward her and took her gently by the shoulders. "This is not your home. You are losing yourself here."

"Doctor, go away. Go away, leave me, and don't come back. Ever."

"What?"

"I think that you heard me. I don't love you. I don't owe you anything. And you don't owe me. Just go. Find a new companion, and forget me. It won't be difficult."

He was speechless. The look in her eyes chilled him to the bone. For her to pontificate on the nature of maleness and the fragmentation of the soul was one thing. For her just to flat-out tell him to go away and never come back… that hurt.

"Martha, I will never leave you."

"Doctor, do as you like, but I will not interact with you anymore. If you come to the visitor's atrium, I shall refuse to see you. If you come to my room again, I shall scream for the guards. I am giving you this opportunity to leave without consequences, as long as you promise never, ever to try to see me again."

When he had arrived, he had planned on using the nun's habit he had "borrowed" to wrap up Martha and carry her out of there. But he now found that he just couldn't do it. Even if he knew it was for the best, it would be terrifying for her, and a violation to her person. It would be validating everything she was saying about him and his "maleness," he supposed. So he reckoned he'd have to improvise.

The Doctor stepped toward the door and pushed it open. He took one last look at her, and then walked through and closed it behind him. He certainly wasn't going to promise to stay away forever. So he left without saying anything.

* * *

"Okay," he said to no-one in particular as he threw his coat on one of the coral columns and walked up the ramp. "Job one, get Martha out of there. Job two, free Asmei's soul from the stranglehold of the cats, hopefully without also freeing the souls of the women who are mixed in there."

Professor Secopor had discussed the theory of a particular type of energy receptacle, the type that existed outside of time and space, and could be manipulated because the laws of physics do not apply. The Doctor thought about it absently, and reckoned that it wouldn't be _that_ hard to scare one up. The trouble was, how would they get it close enough to Martha and the facility to use it to their advantage?

"Plus," he muttered to himself. "We'll probably need all of the women to cooperate. For that, we'll need Martha. Either way, we need Martha. Back to square one: get Martha out. Okay then. No holds barred."

He studied the facility's schematic for a while, and set coordinates to materialise in Martha's room. But it was a delicate process, because had to pinpoint not just the right room, but materialise precisely around Martha herself, and her bed. And he had to hurry, if he was going to accomplish it before sleep time was over, and it was communal time again.

However, he found that the facility was defended against any teleportation, in or out. "Like Hogwarts," he mused. "But…" he sighed. He couldn't materialise the TARDIS inside, but he could walk in and out as he pleased, more or less? He could come in and ask to see a patient, sneak through the corridors in the dead of night, and get a PR tour, but he couldn't use disapparating technology?

"Well, that's the future for you," he reckoned. It made things simpler, but messy.

* * *

A group now comprised of thirty-eight women sat in a circle with their eyes closed, holding hands. It was a beautiful day on New Earth, the sun shining down at high noon through the atrium ceiling, softly kissing the upturned faces of the sisters who hosted the soul of Asmei. A communal consciousness was coming together, a collective, life-sustaining force was finding its footing in their minds, but also beginning to become its own entity once more.

The Mother Superior sat nearby, and two other nuns circled round the outside of the group, observing. How long before they could manifest Asmei's soul? How long before it could step out of these self-sacrificing women and be independent, and fully-functioning? Not long now, they reckoned. And it would be a bigger, and better Asmei than before, life-sustaining as a planet tends to be, but also imbued with the wondrous talents and passions of thirty-eight (so far) lovely women who would, no doubt, be glad to give this piece of themselves, if they could understand what was happening.

"Bouthilette, anything today?" asked the Mother Superior.

"Just the communal feminine beauty of my sisters," she said, beatifically opening her eyes and gazing at the blue sky above.

"Good. Aivy, what do you feel?"

Aivy also opened her eyes and stared into the sky. "I feel wondrous union. I feel the life-giving force of womanhood. I feel exactly what Bouthilette feels. And Sarana, and Ollery, and Martha and…"

"Yes, let's speak to Martha," the big nun said silkily. "Martha Jones, what do you see?"

She, in turn, opened her eyes. "I see life convening. I see myself growing smaller. I see… I see… I see a blue box careening toward the skylight," she answered, evenly.

"Excuse me?" the Mother Superior asked, not so evenly.

Martha did not have a chance to repeat herself before a Police Box crashed through the atrium, in a colossal din and an explosion of glass that forced everyone backwards and out of their chair. Almost in slow motion, it fell through to the floor, the sound of its gears filling any space left by the sound of shattering. It landed with a loud _thud_ on the round carpet, little splinters of wood spinning off and joining the shards of glass about the floor.

Slowly, the yellow light atop the vessel wound down, and stopped, and gears with it.

Thirty-eight women stared impassively at the TARDIS as they all got to their feet, all unhurt.

Three nuns rushed, panic-stricken, from the room.


	17. Crashing Down

**Crashing Down**

The door of the Police Box opened, and the Time Lord stepped out, and he looked about the room quickly.

"Is anyone hurt?" he asked loudly. He began to move about, not touching, but examining quickly the heads and bodies of a group of women who had been in the direct line of fire of a half-ton of breaking glass. "You all right? Everything okay? Good? All right?" he asked them. No one spoke nor reacted.

He passed over Martha the same way as the others, and when he was satisfied that there were no injuries, he patted the TARDIS, and said, "Trusty old girl. Programmed her to aim the glass shards away from all living things, and she came through for me!" He smiled at the vessel for a moment before turning toward Martha.

"Martha, we have to go. Hurry! And get your friends!"

He wasn't really too surprised when he reached out for her and she backed away.

He stared at her and sighed with exasperation.

"Martha! Ladies!" he said to the whole group, quickly scanning the outskirts of the room to see if there were any nuns, guards, priests, or anyone else who did not look brainwashed. He paced round the TARDIS so he could see them all, lecturing like a motivational speaker. "You are the victims of a terrible ruse! The nuns are not interested in you, and are not looking to save Asmei. They want to reconstitute the soul of the planet for their own gain, not to set it free or give it a new home, or whatever they've told you. They want to harness its power, its life-sustaining power, for their own purposes! They might tell you it's a noble purpose, that people all over the galaxy will be saved by this, but it's wrong. It's wrong to imprison an innocent soul, and it's _definitely _wrong to leave thirty-eight women soulless for the cause. And, it's wrong to artificially sustain life indefinitely. The planet itself, nature, is the only force that should make these decisions…"

"So why are you making them now?" asked Martha, calmly.

He stopped in his tracks and faced her. "Martha?"

"You are neither a planet nor exactly a force of nature. So why are you making this decision about life and death, if, as you say, only nature can decide?"

"I'm taking the decision away from the wrong hands and putting it back into the right hands," he told her. "I am restoring order. It's what I always do – or try to do, anyway."

"But who are you to say whose hands are right and whose are wrong?" she asked him. "Who are you to dictate what is _order?_" He was almost sure that despite her brainwashed, robotic tone, he heard a hint of mockery in her voice. He felt vexed. It seemed to him that she was only philosophical when it was the least convenient for him, and the rest of the time she was an automaton. He reckoned it wasn't a coincidence. He reckoned it was the communal soul talking through her, in some form or another.

"He's a man," someone answered, quite simply.

"I am…" he paused, looking around once again, at a group of hard-eyed women who truly had no interest in what he had to say. They were not capable of being interested in anything. "…the Doctor. I am the last Time Lord, and therefore, the last bastion of defence against those who would take the laws of time and space, the nature of the universe, and pervert them."

"We do not bow to the will of man," someone else argued.

"Male, female, or some variation thereupon, it doesn't matter. The universe has no sex," he told them.

"We do not follow the laws of a masculine bastion," piped someone else.

"Bastion is a masculine concept," said yet another.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, blimey. So this is how it's going to be."

"We are guided by a feminine spirit."

"A feminine imperative."

"We are one. This man seeks to split us."

"Only our collective soul matters."

"We do not adhere to the masculine value of competition and winning."

"Feminine competition is a collective effort."

"If one wins, all womankind wins."

"Individuality cannot win."

"Individuality makes us less."

One by one, and then two by two, the voices filled the room with various one-liners, slogans about why the Doctor is a force for evil. Slowly, the room filled with the din, and, for a change, all lips were moving in the room, except for his.

He sought Martha once more. He hated himself for it, but he tried grabbing her by the arm and hauling her into the TARDIS against her will. When he did this, it seemed, every single individual in the room advanced upon him like a single organism, contracting on itself. As soon as he let go, the organism stopped and retreated. He scanned the room with desperate eyes, and tried again with the same results.

He weighed the next option. Could he get her off her feet and dash inside the TARDIS doors and lock them fast enough not to get mobbed, and also not to hurt her? Was it worth a shot anyway?

It was.

He bent and heaved as quickly as possible, and stood up with Martha in his arms. She was small, but any way he moved, he was still carrying an extra hundred pounds of unwilling weight. He wasn't speedy enough, and found himself tripped and soon on the floor, covered with semi-angry, semi-catatonic, still chanting, women. As soon as he and Martha were down, and she was free of his grasp, the mob retreated once again, but they stood in a circle, very close around him and continued to fill the air with their brainwashed words.

As Martha lay on the floor, he grabbed her shoulders and hovered over her. He practically shook her as he tried, he knew, in vain, to snap her free of the thrall. "Martha, listen. Listen to yourself!" he shouted over the voices. "You're just chanting slogans now, a mantra! You sound like a computer! You're about half a step from being a Dalek, don't you hear it?" Growing more and more desperate, his voice climbing, his teeth bared, he implored her to come on, come on, listen, listen. He begged her to seek deeply and find who she was. He said the names of her family members, tried to remind her that she was an individual full of life, that she loved him, that they had shared life-altering experiences and a friendship that literally transcended time.

He was positively screaming at her by the time the crowd parted and armed guards had him tightly around the waist and torso and hauled him up off the floor. He was still screaming Martha's name and reaching out when they gagged him and dragged him from the room.

And Martha simply lay unblinking on the carpet, flatly repeating her feminine, collective, life-giving mantras.

* * *

The dead look in Martha's eyes had been the last thing he'd seen before being snatched away from her. And it was the first thing he saw when he'd been rendered unconscious by some sort of billy club, only to be tortured by dreams of guilt and loss.

Coming to, from a deep sleep induced by a knock to the head, was something the Doctor had done all too many times. He was well-practised enough not to open his eyes or try to move straight away. Mostly because it was dangerous to do so until he could assess his situation and injuries, but also because it bought him time. If he let the enemy think he was unconscious for just a bit longer, he could sometimes suss out the game a few beats early.

His eyes were still shut and his head still slumped forward, but he was alert. Tied to a chair, gagged, hovered-over by a big guy with a gun (the gears of which he could hear softly creaking as the guard shifted his weight). It was not the first time (nor even the hundredth time) the Doctor had found himself in this situation, but it never got any more fun.

"So, what are we going to do with him?" asked a second guy, probably also an armed guard, from someplace else in the room. "He can't stay here."

"Dunno," said the guard who had been standing beside him for the past hour. "I suppose it's just until better accommodations can be found for him."

"What, the negative floors?"

"I assume. It's not ideal, but it's secure."

The Doctor wondered where these guys had been all along. He had done some incredibly stupid things in this facility, and no armed guard had ever even made his presence known until today. He supposed that until he'd been discovered aboard the Priests' ship, the Mother Superior had thought of him merely as a slightly dangerous nuisance.

_Well, leave it to me to disabuse someone of the notion that I'm innocuous, and foul things up, _he thought.

And then he heard the Mother Superior's voice, along with a second nun.

"It's strange," said Thredd.

"Indeed," said the second nun.

"If you don't mind my asking, Mother, what is strange?" asked another male voice in the room. To the Doctor, the speech pattern and manner sounded much more reverent than that of a guard. He wondered if this was perhaps a priest.

"Some of the women are exhibiting a stronger connection, a stronger communion, since the Doctor arrived," Thredd answered. There was a pause. "Is he still out?"

The Doctor felt a tap on his shoulder with the butt of a gun. "Yep," said the guard. "Hasn't moved."

"Are you sure you haven't killed him?" she asked, her voice coming closer. He felt furry fingers pressed against his jugular, and then heard her say, "He's fine. Just… sleepy."

He could feel her hovering near for a few seconds, and then felt her move away.

"You mean, the spiritual activity has changed?" asked the assumed priest. "Is it because he is connected to Miss Jones? Some kind of interference through her, from the Time Lord consciousness?"

"Interesting idea," said Thredd. "But no. The activity has got stronger, it has not changed in nature. A Time Lord interference, or even a masculine one, would register on our instruments as a different sort of energy. This is the same, just more complete. It's like the spaces are being filled in."

"Mother, I'm afraid I don't understand," said the other nun.

"The women are not capable of holding enormous swathes of the soul. Their bodies and minds are small, and there is lots of space in-between, lots of holes, in spite of the progress we have made. Which is why the more hosts we have, the better, it's why we keep looking. But since the Doctor arrived, something is filling the spiritual holes, and the connection is much stronger."

"Are the women responding to speech?" asked the priest.

"Only as a collective now," said Thredd. "If I ask one of them a question, the whole unit answers in chorus."

"Interesting."

"Better than interesting – it's fantastic. We might be able to extract the soul and manifest it as soon as tomorrow morning!"

"Is it a coincidence, then, that the Doctor arrived at that time?" he wondered.

"I doubt it," said Thredd.

The Doctor's hearts sank, and it was all he could do not to rail against this restraints and scream. From this moment, it was a matter of an hour, if that, before Nurse Thredd worked out what was causing the phenomenon. He cursed himself inwardly, cursed her, cursed the whole damn mess.

"I must see the surveillance footage," she said. "Earlier today, the session that was interrupted by the Doctor. Call it up."

The Doctor heard computer clicking somewhere in the room, as someone followed her orders and brought about the images she asked for. And then he heard voices coming through a speaker.

"Bouthilette, anything today?" asked the Mother Superior's recorded voice.

"Just the communal feminine beauty of my sisters," responded the voice of Bouthilette Hadran, the woman the Doctor had known previously as a powerful, no-nonsense leader.

The Mother Superior's voice came through the speaker again, followed the voice of Aivy Fendono, the former Major who had fought so hard and valiantly to help save an endangered planet. "I feel wondrous union. I feel the life-giving force of womanhood. I feel exactly what Bouthilette feels. And Sarana, and Ollery, and Martha and…"

"Yes, let's speak to Martha," said the voice of the Mother Superior, over the speaker. "Martha Jones, what do you see?"

Martha's voice replied, "I see life convening. I see myself growing smaller. I see… I see… I see a blue box careening toward the skylight."

This was followed by a loud crash that threatened to blow out the speakers, and eventually sounded more like a hiss. After that, he heard himself trying to talk to the women, then the frustrating, mechanical voices of the women rebuffing him for his individuality, masculinity, Time Lordness, et cetera, et cetera.

"What the hell did he say to them?" Nurse Thredd mused as she listened to the Doctor's narrative, then rewound the recording and listened to it again.

_She can't possibly really think it's just something I said to them? Then again…_

"Ohhhh," she sighed. "Of course."

"What? Mother, have you seen the cause?" asked the priest.

"Yes," she answered, after a pause. "It's his TARDIS. According to Martha Jones, it's sentient, and it's feminine. It's a host."


	18. A Better Day

**A Better Day**

The Doctor was dumped, still feigning unconsciousness, into a new locale. He reckoned that the new room was much larger than the last room he'd been in, because when people spoke, it seemed to echo. As far as he could tell, both guards and at least the Mother Superior had come with, but he hadn't yet opened his eyes.

He heard a high-pitched "wee-oo, wee-oo" sound, and then it blipped off. Some kind of sensor…

"Doctor, I know you're awake, you can stop faking it now," the Mother Superior's hard voice said.

He opened his eyes without hesitation, and stared at the big nun. Her eyes were impassive, but her mouth was set in a stance of anger. She commanded the guards to leave her alone with the Doctor, and then turned to him.

"How did you hide her from us?" she asked.

"Well, I guess we're dispensing with the pleasantries," he commented, getting to his feet. He looked about. He was in the middle of what looked like a disused warehouse-slash-control room, inside a bona-fide cage. He had about fifty square feet of floor space to move in, and the cage extended at least ten feet high.

"Yes, we are. Tell me how you hid her from us."

He seemed to think for a moment. "I'm sorry Nurse Thredd, I don't know what you're talking about."

She gritted her teeth. "You are a tedious, tedious man. You know exactly what I mean."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, saying nothing.

"Your TARDIS!" she shouted after a few moments, barely-contained fury coming through in her voice. "Tell me how you kept us from detecting Asmei's soul inside her!"

"Ohhh, thaaaaat," the Doctor conceded. "Yeah, that was a happy accident. Actually I didn't try to hide her at all."

"Nonsense. Our equipment can track down specific patterns of sentient energy anywhere in time and space. Unless you cloaked her specifically, there is no way we wouldn't have found her."

Once again, he said nothing. He merely stared at her through intense dark eyes that concealed quite a healthy dollop of fear, and even more uncertainty, at this moment.

The Nurse began to pace. "You try my patience, Doctor. You've tried it ever since you first set foot in this building. You think you know…"

"Yeah, I think I know what's best for everyone because I'm a Time Lord, and because of my maleness, it's very, very bad, yay for womanhood, I get it. You know, frankly, I'm a little sick of that noise. Sorry for the sarcasm. I'm usually all _yay for womanhood_, under normal circumstances. Just, understand, Nurse Thredd, it's been a hell of a day."

Nurse Thredd had been stopped in mid-sentence and now stared at the Doctor with angry, wide eyes. The Doctor guessed it had been quite some time since anyone had dared to interrupt her.

He sighed, and continued speaking. "Nurse Thredd, just the fact that you're asking me the question of _how_ the TARDIS managed to go unnoticed by your equipment is proof positive that I really shouldn't tell you anything more."

She squinted at him. "You're talking nonsense."

"Yeah, I get that a lot, and it certainly must seem like nonsense to you. Well, anything that's not _the gospel of cat_ seems like nonsense to you, I reckon. In fact, I'm making perfect sense."

She continued to squint, and paused for a long few moments. Then she decided, "No matter. One way or another, your TARDIS will become part of our project, and you will cease to be a nuisance."

"Yeah, I thought so," he responded flatly.

"We'll work it out for ourselves, how to deal with her, how she operates."

"No, you won't."

"We have instruments…"

"You said it yourself," he interrupted again. "You have instruments that can interact with energy throughout time and space. In fact, that's rather limited, Nurse Thredd. The TARDIS' soul, all of her sentient energy, is housed in the heart, the vortex receptacle that is the crux of the TARDIS' existence and power. That happens to exist outside of time and space. That means the soul fragment you're looking for is outside your reach."

This time, the squint lasted even longer, and the pause was even fatter and more fraught with meaning. She was infuriated by his calmness, his smugness in explaining why she and the other nuns would never get what they want.

"Again, no matter, Doctor," she boasted. "We will find a way."

"Nurse Thredd, listen. You, your nuns, your priests, whoever… you all have no idea what you're doing. There's a reason why only Time Lords fly TARDISes: our lives and life forces are entwined. It's not a simple matter of mechanics and parts. It's an essence that's beyond your understanding."

The Mother Superior showed no spark of comprehension, even, of the words he was saying. "We understand. She has time travel, teleportation. Automatic translation. Compressed molecular technology…"

"Yes, the TARDIS has all of those things. Pretty cool gadgets, if I do say so myself… none of which you'd be able to access. And if you try to open up her insides before she is ready…" he paused for effect, pursing his lips. "You'll be sorry."

Nurse Thredd laughed. "Oh, Doctor, what are threats from you now?"

"I won't make you sorry," he corrected. "The TARDIS will. She houses a store of energy that would douse you with radiation so strong it would kill you in an instant, if she so chose. It's not fun, believe me – I've died from that energy before. It will melt your insides, and it's a fraction of what she is capable of."

The Mother Superior seemed to be out of things to say. "Your words are just words, Doctor," she said dismissively, turning toward a large door. "I'm not a child, and I'm not a fool."

"Nurse Thredd, please," he said. "You're a woman of medicine, and you're a nun! That means, deep down, you're a woman of compassion! Okay, deep _deep _down."

"Goodbye, Doctor," she said, her voice echoing in the large space.

"The TARDIS is a living being. If you go in there with your instruments, you will just wind up butchering her! She is not just a computer with a series of _apps_! You can't just click on the _teleportation _icon and use it as you please. She has a cohesive mind and soul and she doesn't just fall in line because you tell her to!"

Nurse Thredd turned with fire in her eyes and faced him. "Martha Jones did." She smiled at him with vindication, and waited to watch him come unhinged.

Instead he lowered his voice to a wispy growl. "You have years of experience manipulating human and humanoid minds, rooted in reality. Great minds with great potential, good souls that you just toss away. The TARDIS is not like Martha, or any of them. In some ways, she's much weaker."

"Blah, blah, blah."

His voice raised back again to its panic pitch. "If you try to harvest her powers, it's the same thing as if you cut open my chest and tried to harvest my organs with a soup spoon! You won't get a clean cut without the right instrument, and you'll just have a big bloody mess with nothing useful in the end!"

"Enjoy your stay, Doctor," she sang, as she practically skipped to the door and shut it behind her. "However short it may be."

He was now alone in the large room.

In anger, he kicked at the bars of his cell, and then began to pace.

He went over and over the conversation in his mind, tortured himself with the possibilities. They would try to use the TARDIS to put the soul of Asmei back together, only to keep it as their slave for the rest of time. They would do the same thing with Martha, and probably discard her when done, or worse. However, it was very likely that they would not succeed in extracting what they wanted from the TARDIS, then they would carve her up to get at it. They would get frustrated and send some kind of intergalactic mechanic into her gears and her heart, and pull her apart. Then, to get their "money's worth," so to speak, they would try to get at all of her interesting features, which they wouldn't get, and then they'd carve her up even worse.

By then, if he understood correctly, he'd be dead because the Mother Superior had just said he'd have a short stay, and before that, she had said he would soon cease to be a nuisance. He was fairly certain that didn't mean he'd be sent home with a gift bag.

And then, something occurred to him. He had the key to curing Martha!

He had called the TARDIS' heart a _receptacle_ of vortex energy, and they hadn't been able to locate Asmei's soul within her because…

He slammed his hands against his forehead and shouted inarticulately. "How could I be so daft?" he asked the walls. "Ugh, I'm such a moron sometimes!"

But even this revelation wouldn't be of any help to anyone, least of all Martha, if he was in a cage, and she and the TARDIS were someplace else, held captive for the power that could be torn from them.

So, he still had the same problem, which no amount of finesse nor battering-ram behaviour had managed to solve. Ordinarily, he'd say he was back at square one, but the way things were going now, it felt more like square negative-ten.

* * *

He wasn't able to sleep. He lay in the cage for what he assumed was throughout the night, knees up, suit coat wadded up behind his head, hands resting on his stomach. More than once, he had extracted the sonic and calibrated it, attempting to call the TARDIS to him, to remotely have it materialise around him, but each time he had tried, he had found her "offline" somehow, having lost her connection, at least with the sonic.

Fortunately, the Doctor could still feel himself connected to her inside his mind, but gradually, he could feel something changing. Whatever was being done to her was skimming the surface of her consciousness, so her superficial plug-ins were undone. The sonic couldn't reach her, the Doctor's _conscious_ mind couldn't speak with her or command or reassure her.

But the deep and abiding bond with the Time Lord with whom she had spent the past seven hundred years, travelling, communing, mourning, rejoicing, while dozens of companions had come and gone… that is a link that could not be severed with anything these cats could throw at them. Beneath it all, beneath what the cats could perceive with their instruments, the Doctor and the TARDIS were kindred.

He had hours to stare at the ceiling and wonder. He concentrated hard, tried to go deep within his own consciousness to see if he could connect with the soul of Asmei. He reasoned that if he was profoundly entwined with the TARDIS, and she now harboured a soul fragment that entwined her with thirty-eight women, perhaps he could communicate with them, and begin to break the spell.

Not only could he not feel Asmei at all within himself, even while under deep meditation, he could not even locate it, recognise it or know for sure that it was there. He was shut out completely. Although, he wasn't particularly surprised; the women were all very clear that their femininity was paramount to their bond with each other, and with the planet.

And he wondered… now that he thought he knew how to help Martha (if he could ever get her out of here), how could he use the knowledge most efficiently? Or could it be done safely, at all? How would the logistics work? Secopor knew the theory of the thing, which had been essential in helping him come to this realisation, but he reckoned it was up to him to work out the engineering end. Could he get Martha plugged in, without overloading her mind? Would what had happened to Rose at the Game Station then happen to Martha, and would he again be forced to take on the energy and regenerate? He supposed he would do what he had to do…

In the morning, a big, loud _thud_ brought him round from some sort of reverie. He reckoned he'd nodded off for a while, in spite of having spent most of the night wide awake. He stood up slowly, somewhat sore from the hard floor.

The thud had come from the heavy door that separated this room from whatever was outside. A military officer of some sort had entered, and was advancing toward the cage with his back completely straight, and a lock-step gait. His eyes would not meet the Doctor's, but seemed to rest on an object just slightly above the Doctor's head.

"Doctor, it is my duty to inform you, your execution is imminent."

"On whose authority?" the Doctor asked, deadly serious.

"On the authority of the Feline Order of New Earth," he responded.

"The cat clergy," the Doctor commented. "A bunch of priests and nuns are having me killed. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"It is my duty to deliver the message, sir, not to discuss the philosophy of the situation. Sorry."

"What was my crime?"

The officer pulled a comm device from his pocket and stared at a small, lit-up screen. "Jeopardising an important life-saving mission," he replied. "Human rights violations and destruction of property."

"I see. Don't I even get a trial? Isn't there a secular government on New Earth that might have a problem with this?"

"This facility is governed only by the Order. Within these walls, the secular government does not have any jurisdiction – it has been this way for more than fifty years. Our by-laws state that if the Mother Superior feels that the threat is great enough, she may overrule any other authority and decide to bypass any panel decision-making process."

"So basically, Nurse Thredd can be a dictator if she chooses. She's having me executed without a trial, and there's nothing that anyone else can do about it."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Well, you're just the messenger, eh?"

"Yes, sir. It is also my duty to inform you that you do receive one last request before your death."

"I do?"

The officer nodded. "It is one of our most sacred rites, the Last Request of the Condemned. It is a peace-offering, a bargain made with the deity long ago, to rid ourselves of the need to make blood sacrifices."

"Really? There's actually a deity? I never knew. How does that work, this sacrifice thing, I mean?"

"I'm not a theologian, sir. If you have questions, please direct them toward one of the priests during the ceremony."

"The ceremony? Of my death?"

"Of your Last Request."

"When do I decide? Whom do I tell?"

"You have one hour to decide. A junior priest or nun will be along in sixty minutes – you will make your request to him or her."

"Lovely. Thanks."

When the officer had left, the Doctor muttered, "Well, this day is going to be a lot better than yesterday, I think."


	19. Goodbye

**Goodbye**

The Mother Superior laughed out loud. The junior priest just stood there. He was a little humiliated, though all he had done was deliver a message from the Doctor, and did not understand why he was being laughed at.

The elderly priest, Father Las, standing nearby, was somewhat chagrined.

"I'm sorry, Mother Superior," said Father Las. "I fail to see the humour. The condemned simply wants to say goodbye to his most trusted companion."

"Of course he does!" she laughed. "Oh, that's rich."

"Should I have the officers ready Miss Jones for the ceremony?" asked the junior priest.

"It's not Miss Jones, you fool," the Mother Superior snapped. "It's the TARDIS! Oh, that infernal man!" And in spite of herself, she began to laugh again.

"Mother Superior, we have a sacred duty to the deity," said Father Las. "No condemned prisoner under the watch of the Feline Order has _ever _been denied his or her Last Request since the Sacrifice Covenant was broken. That's…"

"Over eight hundred years, I know," she interrupted. "I daresay, Father, that I am far better schooled than you are in the theology of the Feline Order."

"Then you'll know that we cannot deny him, no matter what his Last Request is. Unless it is a request directly to free him from captivity or to pardon him from death, we must do as he asks."

"Don't you see what he's trying to do?" Nurse Thredd asked him, condescendingly.

"Yes, of course I see what he's trying to do," Father Las answered. "And numerous prisoners throughout the ages have tried something similar, some half-insane escape tactic disguised to look like resignation."

"He's going to ask to go inside and commune with _the heart _of the vessel, or some such nonsense," Nurse Thredd said. "And he'll slip through our fingers."

The old priest contemplated. "I suppose we _could_ deny him access to the interior of the vessel. I might be able to record it as a flight risk."

"Good," said Nurse Thredd, happy that Father Las was thinking in terms of doing things her way. She had known him since she was a novice, and didn't want to have him removed. "And while we're at it, we'll not let him within fifty feet of the box. We'll set up a perimeter. Better yet, we'll bring the TARDIS into the room, and leave him in the cage."

"It's a decent plan," sighed the elderly priest. "Considering its intent is to flaut the regulations imposed upon us by those who wished to make peace with the deity."

"I shall wait until later to be contrite, Father," she hissed sarcastically. "But rest assured, my conscience is aching just now."

The priest grunted.

* * *

The Doctor watched with interest as a young priest was sent in with an elaborate tool belt to tighten the hinges on his cage and check for weaknesses. He tried to make whimsical conversation but found himself actively ignored.

He smiled and paced while a group of novice nuns came in and set up a perimeter and wired it not to allow anyone to pass over it without getting a hearty shock.

And he felt a surge of both pride and panic when they wheeled the TARDIS in on a dolly, on the other side of the barrier. Of course, he had seen this coming; he had felt the presence of the TARDIS growing in his mind once more. He reckoned that once he'd decided to say goodbye to her as his Last Request, she'd been unplugged from whatever facsimile of an Espriband they had put on her, or whatever soul-sucking apparatus she was wearing. He knew there was no way they would let him near it, and to ensure his good behaviour, they would likely leave him in the cage and bring the blue box to him.

But that meant that now, the sonic screwdriver could get to her.

He could have summoned her thirty seconds after she was disconnected, surprise the dickens out of everyone that way. It was the sensible thing to do; he'd have been out of there quickly and with as little fuss as possible.

However, it was that little twinge of cocky in him that wouldn't let him take the quiet way out. The "sensible" way would not allow him to see their faces when he made his great escape.

The Mother Superior and Father Las followed the vessel into the room with solemn looks on their faces. Without a word, they both stood in the same prayerful stance.

One of the guards began to speak. "Let us commence the Last Rites of this prisoner, condemned for jeopardising the important life-saving mission of the Recuperation of the Planet Asmei, for the human rights violation of attempting to remove Martha Jones from the premises without her consent, and for destruction of the property of the Feline Order in the form of a shattered skylight."

The Mother Superior and Father Las commenced a chant. The Doctor recognised it as the language of the old mammal refuge planet of Naissenvie. He didn't know much about the theology of the Feline Order and it had never occurred to him to wonder, but today, he found it just a bit fascinating that this religion either began on the refuge planet, or made it a point to harken back to days before felines walked upright.

But not _that _fascinating, because he had work to do.

When the chanting was finished, the Mother Superior said, "Doctor, what say you?"

He acted as though he didn't understand. He leaned forward with a frown. "'Bout what?"

She sighed. "To your TARDIS, your most trusted companion."

"Oh. Well, I suppose… _thanks_ are in order," he said, nodding vigourously. "Yep, yep… old friend. We've seen a lot together, haven't we? A lot of death, a lot of lives. In my case, ten! Yeah. Oh, remember the Slitheen female you turned back into an infant rather than… well, rather than condemning her to death? Wow, what a poignant story, eh? That was a good day, wasn't it? Oh, and remember how we met Sarah Jane? How she wandered aboard when she wasn't supposed to? Boy, all those crazy girls and boys who can't stay in one spot… how _do_ we find them, old girl? And Sarah Jane was one of the worst in that regard, but one of the best in so many other ways. And Rose – she was terrible that way too… couldn't stand still if her life depended on it. 'Course, I'm one to talk, eh? You and I both."

The Mother Superior sighed again. "Doctor, are you just going to oh-so-whimsically take a walk down memory lane, or are you going to say or do anything meaningful? Because if you're just going to waste time…"

"Nurse Thredd," the Doctor said. "I am a dead man walking. I am condemned to execution for the crime of trying to free my friend from the clutches of a brainwashing operation, which I think is actually kind of unfair. Now, you may not agree, but the least you can do is let me say goodbye to my TARDIS in my own way."

She narrowed her eyes and all but growled at him. "Hurry up, and no funny business!"

"Mother Superior!" Father Las burst out, in spite of himself. "You will displease the deity!"

"He's stalling!" she shouted. "He's got something up his sleeve, I know it! Can't you see it?"

"Ohhhh," the Doctor responded. "You mean this?" With that, he literally reached inside one of his sleeves and smoothly brandished the sonic screwdriver. The Mother Superior opened her wide, formidable mouth to protest, but he had already hit the control and the TARDIS' gears had begun to grind.

The guards watched the TARDIS, then watched the sonic. Then the TARDIS, then the sonic, not sure which one to go after first. By the time anyone thought to move, the TARDIS had already displaced itself and was inside the cage, and the Doctor was inside the console room.

He heard Nurse Thredd scream orders for the novices to deprogram the shock barrier and for the junior priests to dismantle the cage. Next, he heard her scream his name.

He stuck his head out through the door. "You rang?" He was amused to see that she could not cross to him because of the barrier, the one _she_ had likely ordered, thinking it would keep the Doctor from the TARDIS.

"Doctor, stop this! Right now! You are condemned – it is decided!" she shouted desperately.

"Yes, keep on shouting your rules at me, and telling me how powerful you are," he encouraged calmly. "Because it's been working so well for you up 'til now, keeping me in line."

"The deity will not have it, Doctor," she warned. "It does not matter where you go in time and space, you will be found."

"Oh, suddenly you care what the deity thinks?" he asked. "Well, you know what? I'll take my chances. Bye."

He shut the TARDIS door, walked to the console and set coordinates for the year 3752.


	20. Doing This For

**Doing This For...**

As the TARDIS did her thing, moved through lots of time and lots of space, made her noises and joyfully brought herself and her Time Lord to a distant locale, the Doctor stared at the gears and sighed. If he had just had the presence of mind to keep Martha away from the nuns, none of this would be happening. Actually, he _had _had the presence of mind, but he hadn't done it for some reason, hadn't overruled her, or even asked for any serious reconsideration. Why not?

Because Martha had believed that the nuns were going to reconstitute the consciousness of a living thing, and that that was a good thing. To save a life, to bring love and bravery and wisdom back from oblivion... how could she not agree to do it? In fact, nearly every move she made was for the greater good - most certainly her choice of profession.

He might even argue that her choice to travel with him was for the greater good, even though he knew very well that she had had ulterior motives.

But when she had come back into the convention complex to face the Lazarus monster, after she had escaped free and clear, had _that _been _just_ because she loved _him_? _Just _to be near him or further her relationship with him? Could anyone really risk their lives that way _just_ on the off-chance that someone they fancied might notice? Or was it a deeper drive to take down something that could wreak havoc on humanity?

When she had run to the crew of the Pentallian, and against all logical evidence, demanded that they dump their fuel, had _that _been just for him? Or had it been compassion? The need to right a wrong done to a heavenly body, a sun that had been strip-mined and cut to pieces?

And caring for him for months in 1913, taking all manner of abuse from people who thought she was inferior to them (including him), and quietly watching him fall quickly and foolishly in love with an admittedly clever, but cold, woman...

_That_ certainly could not have been a selfish act. Sure, he understood that she did it for love, but he also knew that she comprehended the implications of what they were doing better than any human he knew. She hadn't interefered with the natural order of things, no matter how much she wanted to shout at every person who treated her as subordinate and sub-standard. She hadn't interfered because she knew they needed to hide, she knew that historical events were in motion and at risk, and she knew that the Family of Blood could destroy the universe if they got hold of the consciousness of a Time Lord.

"She did it for the universe," he uttered absently. "For herself. For me. She did it for love."

_She did it for love_ was so completely true, such a well-rounded statement, some of it having nothing to do with him.

The TARDIS stopped moving - they had reached their destination.

He didn't move for a moment.

Clearly, she was a great woman with or without him. But he couldn't help but feel in this moment that her bravery and her feelings for him were intertwined. Questions about Martha's motivations almost could not be answered without bringing up both, and realising that perhaps it all comes from the same wonderful wellspring inside of her. And by the same token, he thought, _his_ bravery was intertwined with his companion. All of his companions.

Truly, he shared a bond with all of them, most recently with Martha. But in the time he had spent with Martha, he never felt, except for maybe once before, that he was doing it _for her_. And thinking back on their time in 1913, how she had done it for love, he wished he could say...

...well, that was just it. Something was bugging him, something at the tip of his mind that just wouldn't come to fruition. Something was unfinished, left dangling somehow, and it was knocking at him from the inside, begging to be made whole. If he could just see it...

But, it was time for action now, not for contemplation. He had to save Martha, lovely Martha, whom he had spent so much of the past few weeks thinking about, and so little time actually seeing. He felt a pang, but tried to shake it off as he approached the TARDIS door and stepped out.

Though, he found that he couldn't shake it off. He was unexpectedly accosted by emotion now, seeing this hallway, the cold phosphorescent lights, the dull brown door. Seeing it brought it all home once more, but in a new way. He was here to pull someone else into the fray, because when the going gets tough, on needs one's companion. But what does one do when one's companion is in peril, and one has tried nearly everything to get her out?

* * *

Dr. LeDohn Secopor heard something like the echoing sound of an accordion with asthma, and a minute or so later, he heard the knock at his door. Of course, he had anticipated the knock; he'd known that the strange noise had been that of the TARDIS, signalling the Doctor's arrival.

His heart had begun to pound and he could feel all parts of his face and his neck filling with blood. The presence of the Doctor indicated embarkation on an adventure of sorts, and Professor Secopor was _so_ not ready for the Doctor's brand of adventure! But, wasn't he? Couldn't he spare some of his undoubtedly dormant valiance to help out a legend, and bring Martha Jones out of danger?

"Enter," commanded Secopor, and the Doctor obeyed without hesitation.

"Sorry to bother you again, Professor," the Doctor said brusquely. He shut the door behind him and sat down in the chair across from Secopor.

Secopor smiled. "It's no bother. I'm... I'm... well, I'm glad to see you." It seemed that several million possible descriptive words went through his mind on those few seconds while he was pausing, and all of them seemed either gushy or vaguely disturbing... either way, he didn't want to be off-putting to a Time Lord.

"I have a job to do," the Doctor tried to explain, looking at a spot on the floor, contemplatively. "I always have a job to do, in some form or other. It's lonely work, and it's why I travel always with a companion, you know?"

"I do know," Secopor answered. "I've studied you for years."

"Right. And it's not just because it's lonely work," the Doctor continued. "It's _hard _work, and sometimes I need backup. In fact, the TARDIS is made for a crew, but since it's stolen, I've never felt that I should... well, anyway. It's hard work, and I can't do it alone."

"I see."

The Doctor frowned at the floor and took a pause. The room was silent for a few minutes. The Time Lord's face was inscrutable. Secopor could not tell whether he was gathering his thoughts, or whether he had shut down completely.

The Doctor hadn't meant to say any of this, but suddenly there it was, like an unexpected bout of illness.

"I travel with people, mostly literally... humans. Most of them are humans," the Doctor said,rather more loudly than necessary. "They become my companions, my best friends in all of space and time. I'm an old bloke, and I've had a lot of travelling companions, but when you consider how many beings there are in existence across the cosmos, across the millennia, my friends are relatively few and far between. It's not a common thing to be chosen by me."

"I know that, Doctor. It's an honour, really."

The Doctor made eye contact for the first time since entering the room. "I choose people like you sometimes, Professor. Or rather... I suppose I should more often choose people like you."

"Meaning?"

There was a pause, and then, "Oh, just that you're clever, and you're a nice bloke, and you'd make a good mate for me, but you're not..." And then the Doctor's eyes went wide, and he seemed to remember himself somehow. It was as if he was suddenly realising just where he was.

"But I'm not what?"

For a few seconds, the Doctor gaped at Secopor, and seemed unable to speak.

"Doctor, are you all right?"

The Doctor smiled then, and gave a little chuckle. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I think I am."

"Care to finish that thought?"

The Doctor looked around the room and took a cleansing breath. "Hm. Maybe someday. But... you know, what? I'm sorry. Sorry I brought it up."

"Er, okay," Secopor responded, just a bit disappointed that he wasn't going to get another glimpse into the Doctor's brain. Some kind of personal epiphany seemed to be dawning, and Secopor wanted to know more, be a part of it. "Anyway, I suppose what I started to say was... I travel with backup. But I asked myself, what happens when I need backup to help me rescue my usual backup?"

Secopor chuckled. "Oh, I see. You need a second stringer."

"Exactly. Will you be my second stringer?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" The Professor got excitedly to his feet.

"But, just so we're clear," the Doctor said, stopping him before he could come bounding around his desk like a child. "You're not a replacement."

"I understand. I wouldn't expect to be."

The Doctor stopped for a moment, once again becoming contemplative, staring at something on the bare wall. "You see... Martha and I are very close. Sometimes I become close with my friends that way and..." and then he chuckled again.

After a pause, Secopor said, "Doctor, I really wish you would finish your sentences."

"Yeah, you're not the first person to tell me that," the Doctor replied, and he ushered his new, temporary partner out the door and into the TARDIS. He dug right onto the console controls, trying to avoid the man's eye. But he wasn't very good at hiding his feelings, and he could see by the way Secopor was looking at him, that the professor was onto him somehow.

He looked at Secopor and said, earnestly. "I'm doing this _for her_."

"I know," the man said with a soft smile.

"I'm doing it for... _her._ Yes."

* * *

"So what do you think, Professor?" the Doctor asked.

Secopor had been staring at the computer screen on the console for quite some time. The Doctor had asked the TARDIS to translate her display for the Professor, but the brilliant human still looked perplexed.

"Why are you asking me?" he asked, shrugging emphatically, like a child who had been asked why he'd stolen a biscuit from the tin.

"Because you're an expert in these matters."

"So are you! You're an expert in all matters!" the Professor all but shouted. "And it's _your_ bloody TARDIS!"

"But you've devoted your life to this, and besides, I just need a sounding board, Professor," the Doctor said. "Like before, when we were talking theory, except now, it's practise. It's tangible! Can you read the screen, see what's what?"

"Yes, but..."

"Just tell me your thoughts. I don't want to mess this up. A soul is a fragile thing. Even Martha's."

"Okay, well, from what I can see, your TARDIS is hardly the worse for wear," said Secopor. "I mean, if this purple bar here is an indicator of soul energy, not just intelligence, but _sentience_, feeling, what we might call _humanity_ if she were human... I mean, she must have great, vast stores of the stuff, because having her hooked up to a soul-stealing mainframe didn't seem to hurt her much at all."

"Good, good," the Doctor commented. He already knew this, but he was, nonetheless, glad to hear someone confirm it. "So, Professor, while I was imprisoned in the complex, I had an epiphany. And I'm not sure why it took me so long."

"What's that?"

"Well, you and I have been saying that it might be impossible to separate Martha's soul from the soul of Asmei and the collective consciousness of the women because once different energies are mixed, they are mixed forever, like liquids. The laws of physics will not allow us to save her... even though, disturbingly, the first law of thermodynamics doesn't happen to apply to soul energy. That actually makes things a lot scarier."

"Yes, it does."

"Defying the laws of physics is always scary. And frustrating, as it turns out, because _that_ is the only one we can break inside that complex, and it puts so much at stake! It puts all souls at stake! But, you said the only way to extract entwining energies from one another is if they are housed in a receptacle that exists outside of time and space, therefore, the laws of physics don't apply."

"Right."

The Doctor paused for effect, and to see if Secopor would come to the same conclusion on his own. After a few moments, he gestured to the TARDIS console. Secopor's face lit up. "Oh!" he exclaimed.

"She is a receptacle of energy," the Doctor said. "The Vortex, souls, regeneration, pure data, emotion, you name it, she's got it in there, and it all twists about like energy soup. But..."

"Her heart exists outside of time and space!" Secopor exclaimed, getting to his feet, jutting his index finger in the air like the professor he was.

"Exactly."

"Oh, Doctor," Secopor said, almost with a whine, but a happy whine. "I totally understand now why my knowledge is theoretical! This is the only time I have _ever_ been privy to even the _idea_ of a receptacle that could exist outside of time and space, even though I've been reading up on you for years. I never put it together! It took a Time Lord!"

"Well, as with most things in my life, it took a Time Lord _and_ a human to do it right. So, thanks."

"Do not thank me, Doctor! You have made my entire life with this little journey!"

The Doctor felt oddly melancholy hearing LeDohn Secopor gushing this way. It simply reminded him that this _real_ companion was lost to him for the moment, and the process of getting her back was, and had been, daunting indeed.

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Secopor asked, noticing that the Doctor was staring at him with a deep, forlorn look in his eye.

"I'm fine," he answered unconvicingly.

Secopor smiled slightly and sighed. "We'll get her out, Doctor," said the Professor. "She's going to be okay. Remember when you first said her name to me? Do you remember what I said to you."

"No, I don't."

"You said _Martha Jones_, and I said 'the physician.' It means she eventually..."

"The future can be changed, Professor. A person's time line can change."

"Listen, Doctor," said Secopor. "As I've been saying, I know a little about you. I know that by this point in your life, you're all about the doom and gloom. I know it's because you've seen too much and you know too much. You know how things work, and it makes it harder to be optimistic."

"Yeah."

"Well, get over it."

"What?"

Secopor, rather uncharacterisically, the Doctor felt, took three steps forward and came toe-to-toe with the Time Lord in his TARDIS. "You heard me. Get over it. Get out of your head for a minute and remember that Martha Jones needs you. Your _friend_, Martha, needs you. She needs to be able to go back to her own time with her own family and she needs to eventually finish medical school. And to quote you, just like with most things in her life and yours, it's going to take a Time Lord _and_ a human to do it right. And I'm here to be your wing-man in the absence of another human, but there's only one Time Lord, so buck up."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat uneasily. "Okay. I hear you."

"I'm sorry Doctor, but you've been alone too long. You're too entrenched in your own rubbish with no one to bring you back to reality."

"You're right about that. Thanks."

The Professor straightened his tweed coat and returned to the leather seat by the computer. "You're welcome."

"I wish I'd met you a long time ago."

Secopor smiled. "You said you should choose humans like me more often."

"Brilliant ones who aren't afraid to tell me off." The Doctor smiled in spite of himself.

"But who aren't beautiful and lovelorn, and who don't give you all sorts of complicated feelings?" asked the Professor with a smirk.

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.


	21. What's Changed

**What's Changed**

"How are we going to find her?" asked Secopor, watching the screen as the Doctor flew the TARDIS in the stratosphere above the complex.

"You're forgetting, Professor," said the Doctor. "The TARDIS has stores of essential Martha-ness from having communed with her for almost a year. It's been inside her head, reading her feelings, listening to her complain, listening to her cry..." He trailed off.

A moment passed, and the Professor assured him, "You'll make it up to her. The crying, I mean. Right?"

"It leaves an imprint," the Doctor said.

"Of course it does, how could it not?"

"No, I mean, in the TARDIS' heart. Her soul leaves an imprint."

"I know what you meant," said Secopor, meaningfully.

"The TARDIS knows what she needs to do. You just tell me when you see the homing signal, yeah?"

"Sure."

They flew over the complex and found nothing. They did it again, and found nothing. Even a third pass did not reveal Martha's energy signature to them, and the Doctor was getting incredibly nervous.

"Damn it, what did they do, move her?" he asked, his hands buried in his hair.

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Secopor. "The number of times you've gone plundering in there looking for her, if I were them, I'd move her to another secure location."

The Doctor stared at him for a few moments, realising he was right. He, the Doctor, had himself jeopardised Martha by being so stubborn and not thinking ahead. He had known it, too, even at the time! He cursed again.

"Okay, let's ramp up the feed," the Doctor said angrily, flipping switches.

"Are you sure you're not depleting stores of Martha's energy from the TARDIS' heart by doing this?" Secopor asked. "Because, er, we're going to need it later if we're going to cure her."

The Professor had stumped him. "I have never done anything like this before," the Doctor confessed. "I don't know. Does using energy in this way deplete it?" He stared into the Time Rotor with his mouth and eyes open like saucers.

"Well, in theory, the TARDIS would only be using samples of what you called _essential Martha-ness_ to look for her, and depleting its own stores of energy which are self-regenerative, yeah? So, it should be fine," Secopor said, matter-of-factly. "But I'm all theory, Doctor. I've never put my hands on any of this physically... I just don't think, considering what's at stake, that we should take any chances on _theory_."

The Doctor dashed round the console and pulled the computer screen aside so he could see it. He typed in some command, and shoved it back round to Secopor's side, then grabbed onto the controls again, flying carefully and slowly over the complex for the fourth time.

"I changed the display," the Doctor said. "What does it say?"

Secopor squinted. "Something about 1913."

"1913?"

"Yeah," said the Professor. "It looks like a... pocket of data or energy or something, labelled 1913."

The Doctor frowned. "Ugh, I wish this thing had an auto-pilot." He looked into the Time Rotor again and said, "Just try not to crash, okay?"

He made his way round the console once more and looked at the screen. Again, he typed in a few commands and waited. Then he whispered, "1913."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm surprised you don't know."

"Well, I know that you and Martha hid there for a few months while some body-snatchers were looking for you, but that's all I really can tell you about it. Well, that, and Joan Redfern, you little Casanova."

"The TARDIS kept a... well, a pocket of data and energy, like you said, from 1913. It set it aside in a separate place just in case we came under fire again from others from the Family of Blood. It's got everything - the time signature, vital and non-vital stats on both Joan Redfern and Tim Lattimer, my _human_ DNA code from when I was John Smith, some energy imprints from Jeremy Baines and the other two humans whose bodies got stolen, and the aliens who stole them... and Martha."

"She was your maid then, right?"

"Yeah, but more importantly, she spent all that time visiting the TARDIS each day, just to say hello and feel a little piece of..."

"...of you?"

"Yeah. She came out here and and talked to the TARDIS..." the Doctor mused. "This 1913 file has more _Martha_ than anything else. This is a great, big, _dense_ store of Martha data that we can use for restoration. We can use the regular stores for homing in on her, detecting her energy signature!"

Secopor looked at him squarely. "Okay, but Doctor, if we use that data, the data stored during a time when she was desperate and sad and missing you, and watching you fall for someone else, when we restore her, what's she going to be like?"

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said. "It's still her. All of that is still part of her. And I will... I can..."

"...fix her?"

The Doctor gulped. "Yes. I will. I can fix all of it."

"Are you sure? Because Doctor, something like this... you can't put it off for months, or just do it halfway, or you'll lose her forever. You have to be serious."

The Doctor stared at the Professor with fire in his eyes. "You know I am."

* * *

The TARDIS sat idly on a small hill that overlooked the bay of New New York, not that anyone in the TARDIS was bothering to enjoy the view. For, just half a mile over the hill to the south sat the facility that contained the Soul Inreach project, where Martha had been held. Although now, she seemed to be unfindable. The Doctor had decided to operate under the assumption that she had been moved someplace nearby, within the metropolitan area, so he was casting a wider net with the TARDIS' homing systems.

So, for more than twenty-four hours, the gears had been working to locate Martha's energy signature. Secopor had been watching the screen for the first couple of hours, but had eventually needed to give his eyes a rest, so he'd had a kip in one of the spare rooms. The Doctor had taken the watch after that, and had left the console only once in all of that time, just for a few minutes, to see to his affective needs. He kept watch. He worried. He drank about eighteen cups of incredibly strong tea that Secopor made for him, after finding the TARDIS kitchen. The Professor begged him to get some sleep, pointing out the dark circles under his eyes, and promised to wake him with any news whatsoever, but the Doctor refused.

Finally, sometime around nine, on a bright New Earth morning, a faint signal appeared. The Doctor had been sitting with his feet up, trying hard not to nod off, and the little orange blip on the screen made him sit bolt upright.

Secopor happened to be wandering into the room with another pot of tea for the two of them, and he asked, "What? What? Do you see anything?" He rushed to the console and carefully sat the hot pot on it.

"It's faint faint faint, but it's there!" the Doctor said intensely though softly, as though if he spoke too loudly it would scare the signal away. He pressed a button to the side of the screen.

"Why couldn't we see it before? I mean, what's changed?"

"Good question," said the Doctor. "I'm asking the TARDIS to analyse just that."

A moment or two passed, and some new data came up on the side of the screen, of course, so as not to obscure the orange glow that was getting stronger, indicating Martha Jones' whereabouts.

"Ahhhh," the Doctor sang, again quite softly. "A platinum barrier. They knew."

"Really? A platinum barrier to block energy leaks? That's a great idea. It looks like the nuns are more physics-savvy than we thought."

"It's a great idea, but it means Martha's been locked in a metal box for at least twenty-six hours," the Doctor muttered.

"Well, now, Doctor," lulled the Professor. "Don't think like that. Maybe they have an entire floor in the facility, lined with platinum barriers."

"It would have to be underground," sighed the Doctor.

"Well, there you go. A big, protected platinum basement."

"Hmph."

"But Doctor, this is good news! We know where she is!"

"Yeah, we know where she is, but you were right to ask what's changed, Professor. They apparently know that I have instruments that could sense her, and they clearly know I'm serious about getting her out of there, otherwise why wouldn't they just let her be? They're not just being super careful."

"You're probably right - when you escaped, they knew you'd be back and that you must have homing equipment. I mean, didn't you tell me, back when we first met, that they had used homing technology to locate her, and Asmei's soul, and that's what started this whole ugly mess?"

The Doctor nodded.

"So," Secopor continued. "They know about this stuff. I guess I should have realised that."

"Professor, you're missing the point. They've been hiding her for this long, twenty-some hours since I escaped from that cage... why are they allowing her out into the open now, where they know I can find her?"

"Oh, I see."

"Either it's a trap," the Doctor said, pulling his hand down over his face. "Or the danger to them is gone, and they have nothing more to lose because Martha's passed the point of no return."

The two men cast their eyes to the floor, discouraged. There was a reverent silence while the Doctor attempted to collect his thoughts, reclaim them from the dark place where they had gone.

"But... wouldn't the TARDIS have trouble sensing her if she were completely soulless now, or dead?" asked Secopor suddenly.

The Doctor's face lit up into a serious, manic stare. "Yes! Yes, it would!"

"Well, then, can't we assume she hasn't passed the point of no return just yet?"

"Yes! Yes, we can!"

"But she soon will have, if we don't act!"

"Yes! Yes she will!"

The Doctor yanked the screen closer to him and stared maniacally at the orange blip, the indicator of the last vestiges of essential Martha-ness that existed outside of the TARDIS. He fixated on the faded little light, and thought sadly of how brightly she usually burned. That blip was a reminder that all of her enthusiasm and passion and individuality were gone... he desperately hoped, only temporarily. And even worse, it was a reminder that he had been hugely responsible for letting her fall to the clutches of the scrupulous, but ruthless, nuns who did this to her.

He almost did not want to tear himself away from it, for fear that his inattention would cause it to disappear forever.

"It's my fault," he whispered.

"Well, Doctor, like everything else you get tangled up in, this threat to your friend has brought to light a greater threat to the lives of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, or more. Without this insanity, without Martha getting pulled in, others would suffer, and there would be no-one to put a stop to it. It's why you do what you do, isn't it? And why your companions are so willing to walk through the fire."

"So, what, you think they're like sacrificial lambs to me? The people I travel with are the bait, the scouts, and I'm the cavalry?" the Doctor snapped.

"I didn't say that," Secopor corrected himself, meekly. "I'm sorry."

The Doctor sighed. "No, I'm sorry. I reckon you hit a nerve."

Secopor nodded. "I reckon I did. So make it right, Doctor."

The Doctor nodded in his turn.

"How much time do you think we've got?" asked Secopor.

"I have no way of knowing," the Doctor answered, once again staring at the screen. "We'll assume none."


	22. Connected

**Connected**

Once again, the TARDIS hovered in the airspace above the cat nuns' complex, and the Doctor studied a schematic.

"Blimey, now that it's on the radar, I can see that the room Martha's in is rife with wonky technology and dense spiritual activity," the Doctor commented.

"Sounds like we're just in time," Secopor said.

After a few moments of silence in which the Doctor appeared to be setting instruments, re-calibrating, and the like, all with the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, Secopor asked, "Now, how are we going to get in? I mean, you can't go in because they'd kill you, but I could. I could say that I'm a relative of one of the other girls, and try to convince her that I'm a long-lost cousin or something, and maybe get her to lead me back into the facility. Then, I could probably give her the slip and find the room I need. Especially, Doctor, if you were to give me the sonic screwdriver. But, of course, that's up to you... I wouldn't presume. And then I could maybe send off a signal to you that I'm in, and you could wait outside, while I get Martha out of there. Does the TARDIS have light-refracting properties? 'Cause I was thinking that if it were invisible, you could almost park it right outside of an exit, and we could just run in, and there would be no..."

"Professor," the Doctor interrupted.

"Yes?"

"Hold onto something."

"Why?"

"Because a month or two ago, the TARDIS crashed out of the Presidential Palace of the Western Sector of Asmei through seven layers of stone. A day or two ago, she crashed into the Soul Inreach complex through an eight-foot layer of glass. You can imagine what that feels like to her."

"Yeah..."

"And, I've just promised her if she can crash through reinforced cement and still maintain enough cogence to teleport out of there within ten seconds without my help, I'll give her a holiday in the Pardaisical Wilderness after we rescue Martha. She's tired and not entirely willing... it's going to be bumpy. So trust me: hold onto something."

The Professor's eyes went wide as saucers. Without a word or taking his shocked gaze from the Doctor's face, his hands went to the edge of the console, and he gripped hard.

"Tighter," said the Doctor.

At first, Secopor didn't move. After a pause, he looked about the room with a big gulp, and stepped to a railing. He got down low and locked his arms through one of the posts. He looked at the Doctor for approval.

"Good," the Time Lord declared. Then he looked up at the Time Rotor once again and said, "I'm really sorry. You know I wouldn't ask you to do it if it weren't an emergency."

He gritted his teeth and flipped a switch, just in time grabbing onto the leather seat, praying it was as well-bolted to the floor as he thought. The vessel then began careening toward the surface of New Earth at a speed unknown even to the Doctor, aiming for a giant room that seemed to be housing illegal technology, spiritual manipulative devices, and Martha Jones. The gears were giving a long, high-pitched heave, something akin to a scream of "Banzai!" as within seconds, she crashed through a thick, cement ceiling.

"Agh! My head!" Secopor moaned, his hand massaging his cranium.

"No time!" the Doctor shouted, getting the Professor to his feet and dragging him toward the door by the arm. "She's going to leave us behind in ten seconds! Can't risk her getting kidnapped again!"

They stumbled through the double doors, just in time to hear the vessel dematerialise behind them.

The Doctor fully expected to be accosted by guys with guns, nuns with the Death Glare, thirty-eight brainwashed women, or all of the above. They had both been ready for chaos, but instead they found an eerie calm.

A hum hung in the air about the room. The Doctor and Secopor looked to their left and saw a row of ten nuns, the Mother Superior included, sitting side-by-side. They were seated behind a desk of control panels, about three feet below the floor, in a special indentation. They all had their eyes closed, and their heads were uncharacteristically not covered with their veils, but rather with cone-shaped chrome helmets. The helmets were connected by coiled wire to a spaghetti junction of metal overhangings on the ceiling. They were humming in unison as though in a trance, and seemed to have no idea that there were intruders in the room.

The Doctor squinted at them. "That's weird."

"Er, Doctor?" Secopor was saying. He was tapping the Time Lord on the shoulder, attempting to draw his attention.

"I mean, if they're doing what I think they're doing, then this is a highly dangerous and inflammatory operation," the Doctor continued, staring at the nuns. "It doesn't really stand to reason at all that they'd allow themselves to be so well and truly checked out like this. Especially the Mother Superior."

"Er, seriously, Doctor..."

"Blimey," the Doctor breathed, ploughing right through the Professor's words. "There must be some heavy artillery outside the room - humanoid tigers with giant guns. Either that, or some fierce technology detecting what we've just done... or both!"

"Doctor," Secopor said squarely, now grabbing the Doctor's chin and turning it to the right. "Look."

Secopor himself was clearly stunned, and when the Doctor saw what he'd seen, he understood why.

"Well, what's the matter, Professor," the Doctor muttered. "Never seen four naked women strapped spread-eagle to a big, black spiderweb before?"

"Not since I was a first-year at Harvard," quipped Secopor.

In spite of himself, the Doctor smirked.

Trying very hard to keep his eyes above the neck, the Doctor registered the red-haired woman closest to them as one of the Asmei hosts whom he had seen before when he'd visited and/or broken in, though he didn't know her name or where she'd come from. The woman second closest he recognised as one of the Science Conglomerate from Asmei, whom he had met the day the planet fell. The third woman was Bouthilette Hadran, the once strong, resolute President of the Western Sector of Asmei, and furthest away, nearest the opposite wall, was Martha Jones.

"Mind you, I've only seen very old, digitally degraded photos of her when she was much older, mostly her ID badge photos from various hospitals. You know, the sort of stuff that winds up in texttablets for university students," Secopor commented softly. "But I think that's... on the end?"

"Yep. That's her."

"Okay," Secopor whispered, not knowing what else to say, or where to look.

"Word of advice," the Doctor said. "When this is all over, it might be best if neither one of us mentions this particular little moment of our lives, to any of the women involved, yeah?"

"Sure."

"Thanks."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Secopor.

"Dunno."

"Well, what can I do?"

"Keep an eye on that lot," the Doctor replied, gesturing with his chin to the ten cats in helmets. "Make sure nothing changes on the nun front."

As Secopor dutifully watched the cats, the Doctor began to stride forward very slowly, examining from afar the black mesh that was affixed to the heads of the four women. It looked as though each one of them had a tar-coloured hand holding each side of their head.

The Doctor stepped up onto the platform where the women waited tranquilly with their eyes shut like the nuns, and he slipped on his specs. He leaned in to the side of Bouthilette to examine the fingerlike tendrils that held her head in place. After a moment's contemplation, he extracted the sonic. He had no idea whether the sonic buzz would jostle the woman, or women, round, or the nuns for that matter. He knew that if it did, he was in it pretty deep (since he had managed to illegally escape execution last time), but he had to see if he could break the seal simply, before he tried anything complicated.

He buzzed at her temple with the sonic.

"Anything?" asked Secopor.

"No," the Doctor answered. "Whatever it is, it can't be penetrated with sonic waves. Probably means it's alive and sentient."

"What about the rest of the grips?" The Professor referred to the numerous other places on her arms, legs and torso where black fingers held her.

The Doctor tried a couple of them. "Different type of hold, but just as impenetrable. Seems like the hold on the head is probative. The rest of them are just keeping her body in place."

Secopor frowned, and turned his attention back to watching the cats. They still had not moved, but the eerie silence was oppressive, and beginning to make him very, very nervous.

"President Hadran," the Doctor said loudly. "Can you hear me?" He shined the sonic in her eyes, used it again to try and shake the black fingers loose. He called her name again, but there was no response.

"Why don't you see if you can remove the link physically," Secopor asked. "Maybe the little suction things can just be pried off."

"No," the Doctor replied, turning his attention to Martha. "Because..." He chose one of the grips around her upper arms and pressed his fingers in, trying to force the black tendrils away from her skin.

"Because?" asked Secopor.

"Because, I just accidentally pried off some of her skin. And if the body grips are meant to manipulate her physical person, the head grips are meant to manipulate the mind. I could..."

"...tear open a piece of her mind if you pried the creepy finger-things away. Got it"

"Mm," the Doctor nodded. He now examined Martha's temples the way he had examined Bouthilette's.

He tried to undo them with the sonic, both the physical and the psychic. He sighed.

Finally, he asked, lamely, "Martha, I don't suppose you can hear me?"

"You never give up, do you?" he heard her say.

"What? Excuse me?"

"You stubborn, stubborn man. I have expressed to you numerous times that I wish to remain here forever, that I do not wish your company anymore, but you have repeatedly chosen to ignore me. How very male. How very Time Lord of you."

Martha's lips were not moving and her eyes were closed, but he could hear her very clearly.

"Professor, did you hear that?" the Doctor shouted.

Secopor was startled by the Doctor's outburst, because the room had been so deadly quiet, and no, until then, he had not heard anything.

"Hear what?" asked Secopor.

"Martha!"

"What?"

"Doctor, what am I going to do with you?" Martha was asking him. "How can I convince you to leave me alone? What you're doing is hurtful and dangerous, and I want you out of my life."

"You don't hear that?" the Doctor asked the Professor.

"No!"

"She's talking to me!"

"She is?"

"Yes! This is brilliant!"

"It is?"

"Yes! Because it means..."

"... that if they came in here to extract the soul of Asmei," the Professor began. "They haven't got very far yet, because Martha is still in there! And since the two souls can't be separated yet, then that means there's still time!"

"Yes! And!" the Doctor said excitedly, taking Martha's cheeks in his hands. "It means that she's still her! Deep down. I mean, deep _deep_ down, she's still Martha Jones and no-one else, because Bouthilette didn't respond to me this way! Aw, _molto bene_! Because she's talking to me, Professor, telepathically! And she's not a Time Lord, she can't just _do_ that. Humans can't just contact me non-verbally whenever they fancy it, but someone who has a strong connection _to me_ can do it unconsciously, and there it is!"

"Doctor, do not touch me," Martha said silently.

The Doctor shut his eyes for a moment and kept his hands on her cheeks. He concentrated on speaking to her, and did not say anything aloud. Secopor guessed at what he was doing, and guessed at the consequence, even before the Doctor himself.

When he looked to the nuns, he found ten sets of marbled green and blue eyes staring back at him, in rage.


	23. Message Direct

**Message Direct**

"Is this him, Mother Superior?" asked one of the nuns, wide-eyed.

"Of course it is," the big nun sighed, glaring at the Doctor with tedium. She reached forward and pulled a comm unit from the control board in front of her, and said, "Guards? He's here again, and this time he's brought a friend. Get in here, and this time, it's shoot to kill!"

Despite the fact that he'd seen it coming, great, big, loud alarms went off in Secopor's head when he heard this. His blood pressure rose, and he began to panic. "Doctor! Abort! They _felt _you talking to Martha somehow! Let's get the hell out of here! Doctor! Now! They're coming to kill us!"

"Stand down, Professor, we've got a minute," said the Doctor, still attempting to communicate with Martha, his fingers at her temples.

"No, Doctor," said Secopor. "I know you're good at cutting it close, but I'm not made for this! We've got to go!"

"Doctor," lilted the Mother Superior from her place at the panel in the indentation in the floor. "Listen to your cowardly friend. Did it ever occur to you that less-brave people are also less stupid? And sometimes less dead?"

The Doctor ignored Nurse Thredd, but Secopor realised something. He looked at the panel of ten angry cat nuns, and noticed that they were all still seated, with their helmets on. Trying not to take his eyes off them, he climbed up onto the platform where the Doctor and the four naked women were, he got close to the Time Lord and said, "They're not moving from their spots, Doctor."

"Of course not. They make the priests do all the dirty work," the Doctor replied off-handedly.

"No... but..." Secopor protested, nearly at a whisper. "I think it's because they're trying not to break the connection with the girls. I think they can't move or they'll have to start all over."

"Good call," said the Doctor. "So?"

"So, we can use it!"

"What are you two whispering about?" shouted Nurse Thredd.

"Now, now, Mother, don't get your knickers in a bunch," the Doctor dismissed. "We'll both be out of here and dead in a matter of minutes, so just relax, eh?"

"Report! Now!" she shouted back.

"Mother, please," one of the other nuns had the presence of mind to say. "You need to remain calm for the good of the project. If you are too much in a lather, the connection..."

"Shut up, you!" the Mother Superior snapped. "And you, Doctor. What do you think you're doing? Unhand Miss Jones!"

"Doctor," Secopor hissed, having listened to the exchange, and now incredibly excited. "We can use this! They're not supposed to get agitated, or the connection is compromised. It won't be hard to calm the nuns. Just tell Martha there's nothing to worry about."

"Professor, I've been trying to do that for the last several minutes," the Doctor insisted. "I've been trying to convince her to relax and let us take her, but she's just pushing against me!"

"Hmph," the Professor said, stumped. He looked about the room, looked at the wide, high beams that seemed to be uniting the women with the nuns, and now the Doctor as well. The soul of Asmei was connected with all of them, probably now largely contained within those beams. The Mother Superior was still shouting, asking to be told what the Doctor was doing, what they were whispering about, and requesting "report, report!"

But that meant that if the nuns couldn't tell what the Doctor was up to, they couldn't hear his communication with Martha. This was the communication that had roused them out of their stupor, yes, but they didn't seem to realize what had kicked them from their reverie. And they certainly were unable to "hear" specifically what the Doctor was saying.

That meant, the Doctor had gone too far inside, had dived down too deeply into Martha's consciousness and had found the essence of Martha, the last vestiges of an individual who had a connection with him. He had reached the last little bit that wasn't fully plugged in with the collective, though it was clearly still contaminated by the nuns' influence, if even that last bit wanted the Doctor to leave her alone.

"Doctor, listen," Secopor said. "Pull back a little."

"Professor, this will go a lot faster if you'd quit interrupting! And it's not like we have great swathes of time!" the Doctor whispered back at a hiss.

"No, pull back! Trust me!" Secopor was trying very hard not to shout. The adrenaline was well and truly pumping now, and the fear had fairly well abated.

"What the hell does that mean, pull back?"

"You're in too deep, if you're talking to the real Martha," Secopor told him, his voice shaking, but restrained. "Go shallow. Go broad. Say it to Asmei. If you can do that, you'll reach the lot of them!"

The Doctor actually stopped and stepped back, looking squarely at the Professor. "Get a message to the planet itself?"

"Yes!"

"Doctor!" Nurse Thredd shouted. "Get away from her!"

Just then, some pounding began on the other side of the large metal door. "Mother Superior, we've come to subdue the Doctor, let us in," a militaristic voice called.

"That's brilliant, Professor," the Doctor said. "How come that didn't occur to me before?"

"It would have occurred to you."

"Doctor!" she screamed.

"Blimey, I even had the TARDIS connected to the planet, I could have done this long ago!"

"Yeah, but you haven't had the nuns connected until now," Secopor pointed out.

"But I could have used this to shake Martha loose! I could have..."

"What's going on in there?" the hard voice called, still pounding on the door. "Let us in at once!"

Nurse Thredd leaned forward to hit a button that would bring in the guards with the guns who were under orders to shoot to kill, both the Doctor and his friend.

"Oh no you don't!" the Doctor growled.

He quickly and efficiently put his fingers back at Martha's temples.

_"There is nothing to worry about," _the Doctor said to the planet Asmei. He did feel a sense of urgency, but he had to martial the rush and exude calm in order to reassure the planet. Once he was in, and now that he wasn't trying to bypass it, he felt the feminine soul immediately surrounding him, and the panic was not difficult to quell. _"Be calm."_

He felt the planet accept his lulling.

_"I am trying to save you,"_ he said. _"It is what I have wanted to do, since the beginning."_

"It's working!" he heard Secopor say from somewhere far away. "The nuns are unconscious or something!"

_"Since the day when the militia contacted me in your distress, I have thought of your life and your freedom," _he continued. _"And yes, Martha is my friend. I love her. My priority has been to bring her back to me, but she can no longer be reasoned with. She does not understand. The nuns are not doing this for the good of you, or for the good of her, or any of the women involved. They are playing God. They are trying to decide what happens to a great sentient being, because they feel that they can. I want you to have a choice."_

"But Doctor, I don't think we have much time," he heard Secopor say from much further away. "They're not going to stay unconscious indefinitely."

Again, he felt the planet's acceptance. He felt infused and certain, and suddenly he understood why this state of affairs was more preferable to Martha than her usual, thinking disposition. It was a whole, peaceful feeling, and he knew that he was privileged to be part of it, as possibly the only male other than the planet Liskobe to have this type of connection with Asmei.

"I'm looking at the display on the board in front of the Mother Superior," called Secopor. "There's a countdown. It looks like some kind of fail-safe, just in case they got too deeply under the planet's influence... they needed something to bring them back out of it."

Having heard this, the Doctor was cautious. He knew it could envelop him as it had Martha, though not in malice, but rather in its nature.

"Doctor! Two minutes! Hurry up!"

The Doctor knew it was time to pull away.

_"Trust me_," he said to Asmei. _"Let me have Martha, and I will save all the others, and I will give you a choice about your fate."_

Questioning surrounded him. _How?_

_"Just trust me. Please. I have only ever acted in your best interest, and in hers. I've done it all for... for love. You have to release her."_

The planet gave assent.

He pulled away and looked at Martha, still with her eyes tranquilly shut, her pink lips gently at rest. And he felt pain. He felt fragmented and uncertain, as though part of him were missing.

And now he _really_ understood the way Martha had felt, taking refuge with her sisters.

"Doctor, seriously. We don't have time for this," Secopor pleaded. "I synchronised my watch with the countdown - you have a minute and twenty seconds before the nuns wake up and let in the guards!"

"Mother!" shouted the guards from outside. "What in the name of the Deity is going on in there?"

"Oh, Martha, I'm sorry," the Doctor muttered to her aloud, practically ignoring Secopor's presence. "I don't want you to have to go back to that. I won't let you go back to that."

Suddenly she opened her eyes. "Go back to what?" she asked.

"Martha?" he shouted. He couldn't help himself, and threw his arms around her, even though he knew she was naked and helpless, and still not exactly willing. Afterwards, she did not react to the awkward hug in any way, but made solid eye-contact with the Doctor, revealing neither love nor revulsion.

The pounding from outside continued.

"Less than a minute, Doctor," Secopor warned, stealing a glance at the cats out of the corner of his eye.

Now the guard was appealing to the Doctor to cease and desist, and to release the Mother Superior from whatever hold he had on her.

"Eventually, they will break through that door," Martha said flatly, still clearly not herself.

"Right," he said. He extracted the sonic once more and pressed it to the black tendrils at her temples, feeling safe to pry them off now without uprooting Martha's mind. Then he pried all the other tendrils from her shoulders, arms, legs, chest and back, and he helped her down onto the platform, and unbuttoned his suit jacket. He peeled it off and helped her into it. She simply stood there, so he even helped her button up the front.

"This is fascinating," Secopor commented, still glancing at his watch, in a stance that said he wanted to run, but for the moment, he was taken with Martha. "It's eerie. She's basically soulless."

"Yep," the Doctor said sadly. "There's a little bit of her left in there, but it has no allegiance in particular, just... but we'll fix that, won't we? Incidentally, Martha Jones, this is Professor LeDohn Secopor. He's been my second-in-command since you've been away."

"Pleased to meet you," the Professor said to her with a smile. "I know all about you, Miss Jones."

"I know nearly nothing of you," she responded, not offended nor being whimsical. "So I cannot say that I am pleased to meet you, nor displeased."

The pounding had not stopped, nor had the shouting.

And then a voice came over a loud tannoy. "Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen..."

"Well, tick-tock, Doc," said Secopor. "What's your plan for finding the TARDIS?"

"She's meeting us out front."

"Okay. What's your plan for finding the front?"

"Prayer."

"Excuse me?"

The Doctor looked at the Professor gravely, brandishing the sonic in his right hand, and taking Martha's with his left. They jumped from the platform and made a dash for the door, on the other side of which, there were God Only Knew how many men pounding.

"Please let me be faster than them," the Doctor whispered.

He threw the door open and immediately aimed the sonic screwdriver at all eight guards, spreading the signal back and forth until all eight weapons had shorted out.

"Doctor!" he heard the Mother Superior scream from inside the room. Secopor thought fast and pulled the door shut once more, leaving the nuns inside to wail. The Doctor quickly triple-locked the already fairly stringent bolt.

"Now listen," the Doctor said to them. "You're going to let us walk out of here, because there's nothing you can do about it."

"Doctor, stand down right now. Hand over Miss Jones and surrender yourself," said the main guard, whose voice they had heard shouting over and over, over the past several minutes.

"Yeah, that really doesn't sound like something I'll be likely to do," the Doctor said. "Because, you see, you can't touch her without a word from the Mother Superior, it's against your vows as priests. And you can't imprison us without orders."

"Our orders are to shoot you."

"Okay. Try it," the Doctor shrugged, and all of the guards looked confusedly at their disabled weapons.

When the men didn't move, the Doctor grabbed onto Martha's shoulders and pushed her out in front of him. Instinctively, the guards recoiled from her, and the Doctor pushed her through the passage, and Secopor followed them.

"Blimey," he sighed. "Priests. They'll shove a gun in your face and pull the trigger, but put a pretty girl in front of them and they practically fall over each other trying not to be seen liking it. It occurs to me that if I hadn't given Martha my coat, we could have avoided that whole conversation because they all would have retreated like vampires in the sun."

Secopor chuckled, as the they heard the guards calling for armed back-up.

For the next few minutes, they ran. Secopor struggled to keep up, and Martha only ran as a reflex, following the flow of what was going on around her. With increasingly loud expletives, the Doctor fended off each cell of armed priest-guards with the weapon-neutralising sonic screwdriver, and ploughed past them in very much the same manner as they had dealt with the first group.

They saw only patients and the odd priest, and/or priest-guard, but no nuns. The Doctor was fairly certain he knew why. And within five minutes, they were sprinting out through the front door, greeting the TARDIS.


	24. Feeling

**Feeling**

As soon as they entered the vessel, the TARDIS began groaning in complaint.

"It's okay," the Doctor assured her. "It's still Marths, just a little broken. Help me fix her!"

He quickly guided her to a position somewhat out-of-the-way, and she stood, watching the proceedings with disinterest. The first thing he did was dematerialise the TARDIS, and reposition them in the space above New Earth. The next thing he did was find a headpiece that looked like a funnel, and bring it near Martha.

"Oh, Doctor," said Professor Secopor, looking at the display on the screen. "The TARDIS is doing something."

The Doctor abandoned the funnel for a moment, and joined Secopor at the monitor.

"Blimey, she doesn't even need to be plugged-in for the TARDIS to know something isn't right," he said. "I should have known. See this? These are big black holes in Martha's consciousness where a soul used to be!"

"Oh, dear," rasped Secopor. "That's so sad. What's there instead?"

"Only darkness. Just consciousness, no feeling," he explained. He looked at her and sighed. "If you were yourself, you'd say a Dementor got you."

"Dementors are fictional characters from the _Harry Potter_ series," she told him flatly. "They do not exist in real life. It is impossible for them to have any effect on me at all."

"Right," said the Doctor. "How silly of me."

He stepped back and unbuttoned his cuffs, then rolled them up. Once more, he shuffled round the console doing his thing, getting ready to make magic. Martha watched, and Secopor stared at the screen.

"Doctor, it's doing something else now," said the Professor, again pointing at the monitor with childlike interest.

When the Doctor saw what was happening, he threw up both hands and shrugged, asking the TARDIS, "Well, what do you need me for, then?"

"What's it doing?" asked Secopor.

The Doctor pointed at what looked like a pie graph with diminishing data. "See this? These are the TARDIS' reserves of Martha's energy, harnessed in 1913. She's already used up her stores of everyday Martha-ness, so she's having to switch over to the emergency tank. She's already firing it at Martha, hoping to get her back."

"Isn't that what you were planning on doing anyway?"

"Well, yeah," said the Doctor, standing up straight and loosening his tie and top button. "I just wasn't expecting the two of them to be able to do it without me. I didn't expect the TARDIS not to need any programming."

"I guess the TARDIS missed her," Secopor said softly. The Doctor nodded absently.

The two of them looked at Martha, who was staring up into the Time Rotor, seemingly enthralled. A blue glow was beginning to surround her, and it seemed to come from the inside, and grow into a corona, forming a little ice-blue, Martha-shaped sun.

The light grew intense, and the room began to hum. Martha began to vibrate just a little. She clenched her jaw as if keeping something in, and shut her eyes tight.

Finally, "The TARDIS is taking her away from me!" she exclaimed, the first of any kind of emotion they had seen her demonstrate today. "Don't let her do it!"

"Martha, it's good," the Doctor assured her. "Don't fight it!"

Her arms inexplicably lifted and she stood with them straight out at her sides, and briefly, the Doctor wondered if the TARDIS would lift her up off the floor, but that didn't happen.

"Doctor, no!" she insisted. "I can't live without her - I am nothing without her! The great mother, the planet, the..." she stopped short, and her eyes flew open and she stared once again upwards into the Time Rotor. But she seemed now to be held in place against her will. She was panting to get her breath, and still trembling, vibrating with the infusion of her own soul.

"How can you say that?" he asked her, getting as close as he dared, as intimate as he dared. "You are Martha Jones, and you are _brilliant_, with or without that old planet in your noggin! She is a great mother, and we love her and want to help her, but she is too big, and she is drowning you! She's drowning all of the hosts!"

"I don't want to live without her," Martha whispered through lips barely moving. The whisper, her very breath, seemed to reverberate off the walls of the console room like a giant speaker.

"Just let the TARDIS help you, and you'll feel differently when it's over. You'll feel better, I promise."

"Doctor, just take me back there." Her voice was still soft, though now it was a strain, a hiss, rather than a whisper.

"Back where?"

"Back to where Asmei died, where the great mother became one with all of us."

"I can't do that, Martha."

"Take me there, and let me roll in the debris," she said, closing her eyes once more. "Let me absorb the gases, the heat, the fury!"

"That would kill you," he told her calmly, feeling that he knew what she'd say next.

But he was wrong. She strained and pulled, and knocked herself loose from the TARDIS' physical thrall. Still surrounded by blue light, still humming, she stumbled forward toward him, grabbed him by his tie and said, "I want to be there, in the heart of Asmei forever!"

"There is no heart, Martha!"

"I don't care! It's where she lived and died!"

"You are asking me to toss you out those doors into deep space, and leave you there!"

She didn't respond except to plead with her eyes.

"Martha, there are still thirty-seven other pieces of the planet that we need to rescue, and it is not our decision whether to sacrifice those women! Not to mention the portion of Asmei's soul that is harboured in the TARDIS. Your lone sacrifice, it would have no meaning. It would be a tiny piece that would never be able to reconstitute into an entire sentient planet! Even if I _could_ throw you into the planet's ruins, it would serve no purpose!"

She pressed her forehead against his chest and cried out, "I don't know! Oh, God, I don't know!"

"Just hold on for a little while longer," he said, taking her hands. "You'll be back to normal in no time. Just hold on, okay, love? Hold on."

When the vibration didn't stop over the next several moments, he cried out, "Blimey! How long is this going to take? I'm working a deadline here, you know?"

And in less time than even he expected, the glow abated, and Martha looked at him with lucidity.

"Doctor," she sighed. Her eyes filled with tears suddenly.

Lucidity and sadness.

He stepped forward and put his arms around her. "Martha, are you in there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," she said into his shirt.

"Really? It's you?"

"It's me," she answered, and then she began to weep. He heard her let out a little sob, one that sounded like she'd been holding it in for ages, and he felt her whole body tremble with the grief.

"Oh, Martha," he sighed. For a few minutes, he just let her go, soaking the front of his shirt with her tears. Tentatively, and reluctantly, he asked, "Why are you crying?"

She didn't answer for a long moment, and then she pulled her sobs under control, and she sniffed, answering, "I just feel so... I just _feel_ so much." With that, she lost control again, and she dug her fingernails into the Doctor's upper arms with the intensity of it.

"I see," he whispered, kissing the top of her head. "You've been washed of your _self_ for so long, you're drowning in emotion now."

She didn't respond, she just cried.

Eventually, still holding on and trembling, she reported, "It hurts."

"What does? Which part?" he asked her.

"All of it," she responded.

"Even the good things?"

"Yes," she said emphatically, and squirmed away from the Doctor. She started walking around the console room, trying to shake off the overwhelming _feeling_, the onslaught of sweet after such a long period of bland. "I'm alive and I'm happy, and it hurts. My family and friends are not in danger. That hurts too. I have faith in you, and now you're here..." she stopped and stared at the Doctor with longing.

"Okay, erm, I'm just going to wait outside," Secopor said. "This is really a private moment." He walked toward the door.

Martha had forgotten he was there, frankly.

"We're in space," the Doctor said to the Professor, never taking his eyes off Martha.

"Oh. Well, I'll wait for you... somewhere else, then. Please don't forget about me." Secopor went down the hall and removed himself from two people locked in a stare.

"Keep talking," he said to her, once the Professor was out of earshot.

"Happiness, excitement, relief," she recited, moving again, all about the console room. She looked down at the suit jacket which she was wearing, the sleeves several inches too long for her arms, and the hem hitting her at mid-thigh like a very short dress. She gestured to it. "Amusement! It all hurts." Suddenly she was in tears once more, still walking, walking, walking.

The Doctor stood still and watched.

Within a minute, she got control, and stopped walking. "Love," she said, uncharacteristically looking him directly in the eye.

"What about it?".

"I feel love," she explained. "When I look at you. It's all I have ever felt when I've looked at you, apart from frustration. And that... oh, Doctor."

"It's okay, Martha, we'll get through it."

"Will we? Because there is also despair."

"We will, I promise."

"Despair and loneliness," she began to sob again. "Overwhelming loneliness."

"Martha, you haven't been alone in your own mind in a few months," he told her. "Of course you feel lonely now."

She nodded. "I know that Asmei is gone from my mind and so are the others. I know that you removed me from that, and that's a good thing. But I also feel abandoned."

"Abandoned?"

"Yes. By you."

He frowned. "I see."

"I feel you are distant, Doctor."

"More so than usual?"

She took in a quick breath. "Yes. Not just distant, but buried somehow."

"That would be 1913 invading your... brain, heart, soul, perhaps all of the above," he said. He took several steps forward and put his hands on her shoulders. "But I will help you not to feel so abandoned and alone. I'll give you what I couldn't - or didn't - give you the first time, when we left 1913. I promise."

She frowned, not understanding. "Okay. What are you talking about?"

"It's a long story," he told her with a smile. "For now, are you okay to help me and the Professor get the rest of those women out of the soul-sucking machine?"

"Of course. I may cry a lot, but I can help. It's what I'm here for."

"I hardly think you'll be the only one crying."

She smiled slightly. It was the first time he'd seen her smile in far too long, and though it was a forlorn smile, there was amusement buried within somewhere. He relished it. He hugged her one more time, feeling a little overwhelmed with emotion himself. At this moment, he wanted nothing more than to tell her everything, everything that had happened, every revelation he'd had about himself and about her... about the two of them. But he wanted to give those moments their due, and for now, they had thirty-seven other women to rescue.

"Go get dressed," he told her, his cheek pressed against her temple. "Then go find Secopor. The two of you should raid one of the wardrobes for clothes, because I think we're going to need about thirty-seven different sets of duds."

"Oh!" she said, pulling away. "Got it."

"Not that you don't look spectacular in my suit coat."

She looked down at it once more. "I think it looks better on you. Besides, I'm kind of partial to underpants."

He chuckled, and so did she. She disappeared down the hall.

* * *

Martha re-entered the console room twenty minutes later, wearing her own jeans and her own soft blue tee-shirt, and her own boots that she often wore for going adventuring with the Doctor. He loved the sight of it, of a ready-to-go Martha, comfy in her own skin at last. She had Secopor in tow, and the two of them were pushing trolleys heaped with women's clothing of different sizes.

"Brilliant!" said the Doctor, watching them push their way up the ramp and park their load on the platform.

"I believe this belongs to you, sir," she said, handing him the suit coat she'd been wearing for the past hour.

"Thank you, madam," he said bowing slightly. He unrolled his sleeves and buttoned his cuffs again, then put on the coat and fastened it at the two usual points in the front.

Martha watched him, and when she saw him straighten out the jacket, she began to cry.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," she answered through tears. "You're just so handsome, and I'm so happy to see you, and to be here with you and..."

Secopor sighed. "She did that twice in the wardrobe."

The Doctor patted her on the back with affection. "It will pass, Martha. It would be good, though, if you could be emotional and also keep your wits about you."

She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She took a big gulp and told him, "I'll do my best."

"Good, because I think this next move of ours might tax your resolve."

She gulped again.


	25. Two Minutes

**Two Minutes**

The TARDIS was now parked on a grassy knoll near the complex, and the Doctor and Martha stood in the doorway, looking contemplatively at the gargantuan building, where so many souls were being manipulated, and even stolen. Decisions were being made that lives could be sacrificed, the _quality_ of lives could be sacrificed, for what one group of felines deemed a greater good. They could hear the console humming behind them, but neither of them could feel, any more than usual, any great consciousness at work.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

She nodded tightly, he knew, because she was trying to keep from bursting into tears again.

"It's all right if you need to cry," he whispered. "I won't tell anyone. I'm sorry I told you to try and keep it together. You don't have to do that."

She did not respond except to take a deep breath and continue to stare straight ahead.

He had warned her that this process would tax her emotionally, and he had been right. But he rather wished he hadn't said anything, since now, she felt she needed to be strong, or prove him wrong or something.

"Martha, let yourself feel," he said. "It's the natural state of things. You'll gradually find that you can handle it... little by little you'll become acclimated. Like in a cold ocean."

She let a couple of tears slip by, and said, "Tell me again."

"The TARDIS still has Asmei within her. She is trying to commune with the planet, the women and the nuns right now, to calm them, so that we can free the hosts."

"It's just so beautiful. It's a network of souls, so complete," she said, letting a few more tears slide down her face.

"I know," he said. "I felt it when I was communing with you. I felt why you were so at-home with the planet in your mind, and why you felt whole when you were with your sisters. You had said that all uncertainty goes away, questions become answers..." he stopped short. He remembered feeling this way when he'd looked at her, strapped to the web. He had felt such a surge of something unexplainable _for her_, something like pain, and being entrenched with Asmei had made it not hurt, just for those few minutes.

He stopped short because he felt a little of that pain right now. She was such an important part of his life, and he had spent the past couple of months making no move that did not involve _her_ best interest. He had been finding lately that he desired something from her, and he was pretty sure that Martha would give it to him without hesitation, but _Martha_ was still, in a way, buried beneath other things. There was baggage. And part of him looked forward to helping her clear it away, while another part of him just wanted _her_, all to himself, right now, no delay.

"So what will happen?" she asked, sniffling.

"If all goes well, the TARDIS will lull the nuns via the planet, group by group. The nuns will go into a brief trance, the planet will release the hosts, and we can bring them into the TARDIS with us."

"And the TARDIS will be able to re-ensoul them, like she did for me?"

"I'm not sure about that, I'm sorry," the Doctor confessed.

She pressed her fingers to her mouth to stifle a sob. "Okay," she gulped.

"There's a chance, Martha. There's no reason to lose hope. But I don't know. The Professor might have a better answer for you, actually."

She nodded silently, still staring at the complex.

* * *

"No offence, Professor, but I'm only trusting you with this because I have no choice," said the Doctor as the three of them stood round the console, drawing up their plan. "Not that I have anything against you, but I'm about to turn you loose with literally the most powerful vessel in the universe, and the only thing I own. Normally, I don't do this until I've known someone at least a few months. However, the TARDIS is semi-self-sufficient and happens to be easier to handle than a sonic screwdriver in this case, so there you have it."

"I understand, Doctor," said Secopor. Then he gave the thumbs-up. "Just glad to be part of the team."

"Now, the coordinates are set," the Doctor explained to him. "As soon as Martha and I are out the door, flip this toggle all the way up, and you will hear the gears working. The TARDIS will rematerialise in the airspace above the complex. From there, she can track us, and communicate with the planet while we're inside. You can follow our progress if you want, but you don't have to do anything. We'll have two minutes in each room."

"Oh, right, because you'll be racing against the failsafe that wakes the nuns."

"Right. And there are thirty-eight women, four women per webbing, so let's assume there are ten rooms. Two minutes each, plus some time to get from one to the next... Professor, give us twenty-five minutes from the time the TARDIS rematerialises, and then press this button!" the Doctor instructed with flourish. "It's the emergency spatial shift button. Normally it deposits us onto Martha's doorstep in 2007, but I re-set it just for today, and it will bring you back down to terra firma outside the western gate of the complex." He looked at Martha and said, "Just remind me to set it back."

She nodded.

"Then what happens?" asked Secopor with some nervousness. He had a good idea of the next half hour of his life, but nothing was taking shape after that.

"Then, get ready to take on thirty nine passengers!"

"We're bringing them all with us?" Martha asked.

"Of course not," the Doctor said. "It's just for lack of someplace better to put them while we work out what the hell to do next."

"Oh. Fabulous plan."

"Ready to go?"

She choked back a surge of pure emotion. "Ready as I'll ever be," she said, and then she choked again, as the two of them began climbing into layer upon layer of clothing.

* * *

Martha and the Doctor stepped outside and saw that gargantuan, unpleasant, deceptively impregnable complex. Almost before the door was completely shut, they heard the TARDIS' inner-workings and watched her disappear. A few seconds later, she reappeared high above the building.

The Doctor, wearing an old, floppy wide-brimmed hat, and layers of garments that made him look about a hundred pounds heavier than he was, looked at Martha with an expression of resignation. Martha, wearing a pink, starched eyelet lace hat with layers that made her seem similarly rotund, gazed back at him with a weary smile. For good measure, the Doctor threw on his glasses, and then he took her hand and walked toward the nearest entrance.

"Good day sir, madam," said a blue-skinned attendant. This was a different guy than the one the Doctor had seen before when he'd taken the PR tour, but he was equally tall and equally blue. "How may I assist you?"

Martha looked down at her feet, and began muttering to herself. The Doctor put a sympathetic arm around her, adopted a provincial accent of some kind, and said, "It's the missus. I'm afraid she's gone a bit barmy. Didn't know where else to go."

"I see," said the blue man, looking the heap that was Martha over with a mixture of wonder and something like disgust. "Let me notify the relay system so that I can escort you to the consultation room. From there they should be able to tell you what steps, if any, to take."

With that, the blue man pressed his finger into his ear and spoke, requesting permission to bring a possible new patient into the complex. The Doctor made a note of the undetectable comm device implant.

Once they were clear, apparently, the man said, "Follow me, please."

They crossed foyers and atriums, by now so familiar to them both. They saw groups sitting in circles, patients and their family members wandering about, and finally, corridors. Once they had turned the proper corner according to a schematic that they had studied, the Doctor quickly apologised to the blue man, then activated the sonic to send feedback from the comm device. The man passed out on the floor of the hallway, and the two of them, encumbered by their padding, hoisted him by the arms and legs, and stashed him in the nearest office.

From there, they hurried into the very warm room they knew to be the laundry. The operation was unmanned, so they were not impeded as they went in, each found a nun's habit to fit their new-found shape (which was not an easy feat for a six-foot Time Lord with extra girth), and slipped back out. They kept their heads down as they moved through the complex, and hoped no-one would look closely enough to realise they were not cats.

They went down in the lift as planned, and at last, found a metal door, bolted shut.

"Start here?" he asked her.

"Good a place as any," she answered, growing dangerously emotional again. "I hope the TARDIS..."

"Shh," he encouraged, hearing her voice break, not wanting her to lose control in this precise moment. He said gently, "I know. I hope so too." He quickly unbolted the door with the sonic and burst into the room.

For a long moment, the nuns just sat and stared at the Doctor, wide-eyed, jaws agape. Martha's gaze went back and forth from the nuns to the four women, strapped to the black viney machine to their left.

"Oh my God!" she whispered. "That thing is hideous. It looks like torture!"

One of the nuns gasped and cried out, "Who are you? Leave at once! Guards!"

And with that, her head fell forward and she seemed to lose consciousness, as did all of the nuns, lined up and plugged into the soul-extraction device.

"Ha!" the Doctor cried out. "That's my girl! The TARDIS comes through again!"

"Doctor, two minutes!" Martha reminded him.

He ran to the platform and began sonicking the women out of the black webbing. Martha stripped off her habit, and directly underneath it, she was wearing a yellow bathrobe. She stripped this off as well, and gave it to the first woman freed. To the second woman, she gave the button-up coat dress underneath that, to the third woman, she handed an oversize Oxford shirt, and to the fourth, she gave a nightgown.

"Nudity averted," she quipped, looking them over. They stared back at her with no impetus, no emotion whatsoever.

One of the nuns began to stir.

"Agh! Two minutes is up!" the Doctor shouted. "Go, go, go!"

Martha ran toward the door as fast as she could, holding the habit in her arms and trying not to trip over her layers. The four dressed women followed without hesitation, but without any real drive. As Martha had done an hour or so before, they were running out of instinct, reflex.

They shut the door behind them, and Martha said to them, "Act natural. Do not hurry. Just go down that hallway and find your way to the west door. Go outside. Stand on the grass, and do not stare at the complex. We will come for you very soon. Do you understand?"

They nodded, and began to wander off.

Martha looked doubtfully at the Doctor. She felt they would be discovered, since they had no finesse, no idea of what was actually happening, or what was at stake.

"They can't come with us," he said, by way of assurance. "We can't be dragging a chain of dazed women from room to room with us. It's impractical, and besides, we'd get caught in a New New York minute!"

And so it went. Eight more rooms, about a hundred nuns, two minutes each, various states of soul-communion and/or extraction, therefore various states of panic. They gave awkward clothes to thirty-four women, all looking as though their reason for living had been taken away. With all of the nuns more or less occupied with extraction, there was no-one walking about on the premises to recognise the Doctor or Martha. Although, they had to trust that each group of four (or sometimes three) women that they turned loose made it outside safely, and did not get caught and brought back in, and alert the staff to what was happening. The Doctor supposed they would deal with it if it happened, but for now, they were concentrated on freeing the women, and bringing the soul of Asmei as far as possible out of the reach of the nuns.

All that was left now was the final room. Or the first room, depending how one chose to look at it. Inside, there was Anneele Britony, a member of Asmei's science conglomerate, a red-haired woman whom Martha had come to know here at the complex only as "Sondra," and President Hadran. Beside the President, there was an empty space that Martha had occupied, not so long ago.

By now, the only extra garments they had left for lending out were the two habits they had taken from the laundry, and the Doctor's suit coat. And so, looking very much like themselves, they strode into the room where the Mother Superior and nine other nuns sat beatifically plugged into the collective soul.

Over the past twenty minutes, Martha had been allowing little threads of tears to streak down her face, mostly because she couldn't entirely keep it in. But upon seeing the empty space in the webbing, she couldn't hold back any longer. She burst into tears, and immediately walked toward it with her arms reaching out in front of her.

"I see you've de-loused one of our finest," the Mother Superior said, waking from her trance upon hearing the sobs. "I can tell by the dignified weeping."

"You know what?" the Doctor said harshly. "I think I've heard just about enough from you. Just sit there and look menacing while we get the last of your victims out of this building, yeah?"

The big nun smirked. "So arrogant, Doctor."

"Yeah, yeah," he sighed, without looking at her, now approaching the platform, where Martha was trying in vain to communicate with the President.

The nun smiled widely. "I can feel your TARDIS, Doctor, trying to lull us into thinking everything's all right."

"It's a non-violent way of getting you lot to shut the hell up."

"It won't work this time," she taunted. "You have already exhausted the failsafe."

"Oh," he said, turning to face her, genuinely surprised. Mentally, he flogged himself for not having thought of that. And briefly, he wondered if these last three would have to be the casualties. "Well, you might as well let them go. They are the last three on the premises. We have freed all of the others, and they're in my care now, Nurse Thredd. Once I get them together and off this planet, you can't touch them anyway."

"You're bluffing."

The Doctor smiled. "I do that sometimes, yeah," he told her. "But not this time. Check the other rooms. The women, the hosts of Asmei's soul, are gone. You'll probably find roomfuls of young nuns who are realising what's happened, and who are too afraid to tell you about it, and too afraid to call the guards for fear you'll hear. Oh, it's quite a mess you've created for yourself here, Mother."

"You infernal man," she hissed.

"Yeah. You thought I was just in it to get Martha out of here, didn't you? Well, that just means you don't have my number as down-pat as you thought! Ha."

"What right do you have?" she asked, getting to her feet. In the process, the chrome helmet fell off of her head, and the Doctor saw her feline ears for the first time. "This is a private sanctuary! A place of healing! We are doing great things for the good of all, Doctor, and you think you can just decry it inappropriate or immoral and your word is the last! Well..."

"Mother Superior, your helmet!" one of the other nuns said.

The Doctor looked over the panel of cats and thought it might actually work if he were to get them all in a lather, then they'd all stand up and disconnect from the machine, freeing the last three women from their thrall. But he realised that the Mother Superior would call for the guards long before he could make that happen.

"Nurse Thredd, Mother Superior," he said softly, deadly serious. "Let them go. There is nothing these three women can do for you now."

"Release them to you? Never!"

"Ladies," he said to the other nuns. "Sisters. I understand your position. You think you're doing right for your order, following the Mother Superior's commands, believing her when she tells you that I'm the bad guy. But look at what's happening! You have three innocent, unconscious women strapped naked and spread-eagled to a big black machine! And at this stage, it is of _no use_ to anyone, whatsoever! If you keep them enthralled, they are as good as soulless, as good as dead. They will rot here, perish in this facility, the husks of their bodies used in some way for what some might call medical science. But if you let them go, they can choose to be wives, sisters, mothers again. They can choose to reconstitute Asmei in their own way, and give her a good home. But realise that your plan has been foiled, and the only decent thing to do is override the Mother Superior. What would your deity do?"

It only took about ten seconds for the nun sitting directly beside the Mother Superior to stand up and remove her helmet. Nurse Thredd gasped, and in a huff, reached for the comm device to call the guards. The other nun said, "No. I won't let you. You've done enough for now."

Another nun stood, and then another, and then another. Before all ten nuns were on their feet, the Doctor was atop the platform, and the women were opening their eyes. Martha Jones let tears fall as the Doctor untangled the black web's hold on their minds and bodies. She dressed Sondra and Anneele in habits, and Bouthilette Hadran in the Doctor's coat. Quietly, amid an intense ten-nun standoff, the Doctor and Martha left the room with their soulless charges in tow.


	26. The Choice

**This is the second-to-last chapter, my friends, and it's not going to be pretty! You have been warned. Seriously, get ready. **

**So sad that our adventure is coming to an end...**

* * *

**The Choice**

Upon leaving the complex, the TARDIS was already waiting for them on the west lawn. The Doctor did a quick head-count: thirty-eight women and two men. Forty people were about to occupy the console room - it was going to get crowded.

"All right, everyone in!" the Doctor called out. The women just stared at him.

"Sisters, for the good of the planet Asmei, for the reconstitution and peace of her soul," Martha said to them as loudly and as passionately as she could. "Turn and face the blue box! And enter!"

Some of them continued to stare at her for a few long moments, but ultimately, the women queued up and boarded the TARDIS.

The TARDIS began to hum inside, as soon as the first few of them had come inside. Without being told to do so, the thirty-seven who were still slightly possessed joined hands around the console. They all stared uniformly at the ceiling, and seemed to glow.

"Wow," whispered Martha. "This is creepy."

The Doctor and Secopor both nodded in agreement.

"They came to her like a magnet," Martha commented.

"Just like you did," the Doctor told her. "The TARDIS _wants_ to restore them."

He wandered over to the monitor and watched the transfer of energy. Secopor watched along with him.

After a few moments, Secopor whispered, "I thought Martha was attracted to the TARDIS because it had a big store of Martha's energy that it wanted to give back."

"Yeah, you're right," the Doctor realised. He tapped some keys, and the display changed. "Oh, blimey."

"What's wrong?" asked Martha, concern rising in her voice, tears coming to the surface once again.

"The Professor has it right," the Doctor explained. "The TARDIS had a big chunk of Martha-ness to give back to you, so she re-infused you as an imperative, without my help. _This_ is happening because two big swathes of the soul of Asmei are now in each other's presence, the collective in the women's minds (what's left of it, anyway) and in the TARDIS. The TARDIS doesn't have reserves of their original souls."

He buried his hands in his hair, and slumped down in the seat, eyes wide.

"So, what? You're saying they can't be restored?" she asked, tears flowing freely, panic tainting every fibre of her being. "So you're saying it's all for nothing? All that stuff we did to get them out of there, and they're just going to be zombies forever?"

The Doctor looked at Secopor.

The Professor shrugged. "In theory, it could be done," he said. "Soul energy is impossible to separate from other soul energy, like I said, it's like mixing black paint with white paint. All you will ever have is grey. Except, in the case of the energies being housed in a receptacle that defies the laws of physics, of time and space." He gestured to the Time Rotor.

"The problem is, the TARDIS doesn't currently have access to the whole of the collective soul," the Doctor continued. "So what it contains of the individual women's souls... the samples are small and unstable and won't restore fully."

"This can't be! Doctor, you have to do something!" she shouted, panicking further.

"Martha, I don't know what else I can do."

"Well," Secopor interjected. " We've been assuming that Asmei's sould is split only in two right now - the TARDIS' half, and the half that's still in them. But we interrupted them in the middle of extraction. We can probably assume that there is still a giant piece contained in those metal beams in the rooms with the big black webs. Because seriously you two, look at them. They are pretty well soulless. Very close, anyway."

"Ha!" shouted the Doctor. "Brilliant!"

He threw some switches with more than his usual fluorish, and they found themselves hovering once again above the complex. But upon inspection of a few instruments and the data screen, the Doctor's face fell. "Martha, I'm sorry."

"What?"

"The planet's soul has been released from the beams, from the complex, and all the individual souls with it."

She stomped her foot. "How could they do that?"

"My guess is, the Mother Superior panicked and got rid of the evidence," he said with his teeth gritted together. "She thought I'd go to the authorities, and so she washed her hands of it. Damn it!" He kicked one of the panels below the console in frustration.

"So half the soul is just floating out there somewhere?" she asked, now suddenly very meek. She gestured listlessly to the women still standing in an enthralled circle round the controls. "What happens to them?"

He frowned at her with his steely brown eyes for a few beats, and then he suddenly fixed his gaze upon the green light emanating from the Time Rotor. "Can you do it, old girl? Just for a few minutes? I know I've been asking a lot lately..." He whispered to his TARDIS, asking a favour.

"What are you asking her to do?" Martha wanted to know. She slowly approached the Doctor, and took hold of his elbow for comfort. Though, whether it was for _her_ comfort or _his,_ no-one could say.

The overhead lights in the console room went dark, and the TARDIS seemed to give a great sickly heave. In the darkness, all thirty-seven hosts began to glow slowly from the inside out, the blue light steadily growing brighter. The women all let go of one another's hands, and their arms went straight out to their sides. The Doctor and Secopor recognised the phenomenon; they had seen it happen to Martha just an hour or two earlier.

Some protestations occurred, and there was a din of voices echoing throughout the room. The Doctor, Martha and Secopor tried to reassure the women, but the process did not take as long as it had for Martha.

Suddenly, the lights were back on, the women were restored and hugging. The TARDIS gave an exhausted, emotional groan, and the Doctor thanked her mentally, promising a long break, as soon as this was over.

And then he stood up on the navigator's seat. "Ladies! Ladies! Your attention please!"

It took a minute or two for everyone to realise their attention was being asked. They eventually calmed, and looked at the man standing on a chair.

Having again lost his jacket, he now rolled up his shirt sleeves and loosened his tie once more.

"Ladies, I need you to listen, because we don't have much time. As you may know, I am the Doctor. I am a friend of Martha Jones, whom I'm sure you all remember. I have been working toward the goal of rescuing first her, then you, and then the planet Asmei from the dangerous thrall of the cat nuns of the Soul Inreach Complex. They have been slowly extracting your soul, making you more and more uniform, more and more brainwashed, in the interest of possessing the soul of Asmei for themselves, and reconstituting it in order to wield the powers of eternal life."

At this, there was a din. He waited for it to die down. Eventually he continued.

"Now, after a strange chain of events, here is the situation: Approximately half of Asmei's soul is in this room, contained within you, and within the heart of my ship. The other half has been released to the ether, we think by the Mother Superior. The nature of soul energy being what it is, I am very sorry, ladies, be we are not able to fully restore your souls. The sentience that you are currently experiencing is temporary. Your personal soul is unstable and will fade. There is nothing I can do about that."

"Wait! Doctor!" interrupted Secopor. "Can't we just find the other half of Asmei, and use the rest of the energy there to bring these lovely ladies further into consciousness?"

Again, there was a din, this time a hopeful one, but as the women realised that the Doctor's face did not show much promise, they stopped speaking and waited.

The Doctor shook his head sadly. "The TARDIS can probably track down the rest of the soul, wherever it's gone," he said. "That's the good news. The bad news is that, not even the TARDIS can force a planet to do anything it isn't inclined to do, and there is no guarantee that once we've found it, we'll be able to take the rest of the soul on, within the TARDIS' heart. And even if we could, she is exhausted and may not be able to do all of this in time to save you all, before your personal souls fade away. In fact, I'm fairly certain she doesn't have the energy to do it in time."

After a beat in which everyone looked at each other with fear and sadness, Martha cried out, "Well, what are we doing standing here? Let's give it a go! Come on, Doctor!"

Secopor piped up. "Yeah, I mean, even if the TARDIS does it slowly, we can at least save _some _of them, can't we?"

"Just a moment," Bouthilette Hadran's voice said from somewhere within the crowd. She stepped forward, looking less than authoritative in nothing but the Doctor's suit coat, but exuding intelligence and dignity no less than she always had. She had joined arms with another woman, whom Martha recognised as the President of the Eastern Sector of Asmei. Together, the two of them had run the great planet until its demise. "It was our planet, and these are our people. Let us decide."

The Doctor nodded meaningfully, and stepped down from the stool.

"First, tell us, how long do we have our souls? Are we talking about minutes, hours, weeks?"

"Minutes," said the Doctor. "Ten, maybe fifteen."

"Is it a uniform amount of time?"

"No. It's approximate, and it won't happen all at once. Someone will drop first, and the rest will follow over the next several minutes."

"And how long will it take to track down the rest of Asmei's soul?"

"No way to know. A couple minutes, maybe more. Probably more, since the TARDIS is depleted just now."

Hadran sighed. "And how long will it take for your TARDIS to give us back our souls?"

For this, the Doctor had no answer. He looked at the President with despair in his eyes.

"Is there _any_ hope that it could restore us all?" she asked.

"Not really," he confessed. "The Professor is correct - we could save _some_, but very likely not all. Separating the energies is a delicate process that defies the laws of physics, and for the TARDIS to do it _at all_ would severely deplete her - it already has. To do it quickly would be nigh on impossible."

She thought about this. "And what happens to the souls who are lost?"

"They are one with Asmei, they go wherever she goes. I promised Asmei a choice, Madame President, and I plan on giving it to her. I don't know where she will wind up, but rest assured, she will take most of your souls with her."

She turned to the group of women, and faced them regally, as their leader. "I would ordinarily never entertain the notion of telling anyone how to think or feel. But we are gathered here in large part because we loved the great planet. She chose us as hosts because we loved her, showed compassion to her," she said to them. She turned and faced Martha with tears in her eyes, "Or risked life and limb to help her. I feel that if we cannot all be saved, then none of us shall be, and we should be honoured to find our home with our mother in the end."

The women cried (including Martha), and hugged and whispered, but it didn't seem as though anyone was protesting.

After a moment of reflection, Bouthilette Hadran turned to the Doctor and said, "I believe we have made our choice."

"Are you certain?" he asked.

"Yes," she told him, and most of the women nodded in response. No-one said _no_. "What happens to our bodies?"

He sighed. "They would be soulless. Without emotion or purpose."

"But they would be conscious?"

"Yes, but everything you are would be contained with Asmei. Nothing of you would remain in your body, even though it is technically awake."

After some whisperings with her cohorts, she asked, "Doctor, Martha, would you be all right with euthanising them? Our bodies, after our souls have been released?"

Martha gasped, and grabbed tightly onto the Doctor's hand.

"We wouldn't be thrilled about it," the Doctor told Hadran. "But we would do it, if you asked."

"We ask."

He nodded, his eyes deeply sad.

"Is there any way for us all to go together, or do we have to wait for our souls to leave us whenever our turns come?" she wanted to know.

"I can send you all together, but we'll have to hurry."


	27. Epilogue

**My friends, this is the final chapter. Thank you for reading - it has been a unique and wonderful experience sharing this with you, and sharing the creative process. Special thanks to Miggs, the mother of this story. We owe all the coolest ideas to her!**

**I have written so many Ten/Martha stories, I struggle sometimes to make their "heartfelt" discussions and revelatory conversations unique. I have ended numerous stories this way... I'm not sure how unique you'll find it! It's not surprising or twisty, hopefully just satisfying.**

**And on another note, perhaps you were hoping for closure from Professor Secopor. However, I wanted to honor the sacrifice of the women of Asmei, and could not see a conversation afterwards in which Secopor stands in his office door and says "Bye, Doctor. It's been a great experience - call me if you need me." I went through this chapter (and the last one) a few times trying to find an organic place to insert it, and it just didn't seem right - it always seemed tacked-on and making light of the situation. Suffice it to say, Martha and the Doctor both feel that Secopor's role in all of this was essential, and are grateful for his help!**

**Again, thank you for your attention and lovely comments. (I have something new on the horizon... chapter 1 will be ready this weekend, I think!)**

* * *

**Epilogue**

Martha Jones and the Doctor threw themselves, exhausted, onto the grass in front of the TARDIS. They sat on a hill overlooking a wildflower field. After no more than thirty seconds, Martha began to cry. Again.

The Doctor moved closer, and put a comforting hand on her back, stroking. "Still not yourself yet, eh?"

"I don't know if I'm still sensitive from the soul thing," she told him, sniffling. "Or if it's just that this is the saddest thing I've ever seen."

Contained in the soil of the wildflower field before them were the ashes of the women who had held hands as the TARDIS located the other half of Asmei's soul and then extracted what was left of their personal souls, and absorbed everything, at her own great personal expense.

The planet had chosen to spend eternity not at the core of the body of a new planet, but on its surface. Asmei chose to live in the vegetation of the planet Terrenelle, to inhabit the trees and flowers and fruit. Once the TARDIS had found the perfect spot for her, she released herself and all thirty-seven other individual souls to be within the greenery. Then, slowly and gently over the next two weeks, the Doctor, Martha and Secopor had put the soulless bodies to rest, then cremated them for a proper disposal with their great mother.

They had taken the Professor back to his space station university before spreading the ashes. He had been more than happy to help with the unpleasant tasks (and they had expressed their gratitude for all of his assistance), but when it came to giving the hosts a resting place, it was something the Doctor and Martha felt they should do, with reverence, together.

And as they sat, having just dispersed the last of the ashes, those of Bouthilette Hadran herself, between the stalks of the wildflowers, behind them, the TARDIS sat all but dormant. She was recuperating from the crashing, tracking, thinking, restoring, and emoting she had done. The Doctor reckoned they would have to spend some time here, in this spot, to allow her to recover properly from all that she had been asked to do, all that she had given.

"Well, Martha, I don't know what your ideas are on theology and all that, but I can tell you unequivocally now, they really are in a better place," he said to her. "Where they wanted to be."

"I know," she sniffed.

"But I understand. The process of putting them to rest..."

"...it was awful," she croaked. "I know they were basically already dead, but..."

"...yeah. Do you have a bit of survivor's guilt?"

"A bit."

"You didn't belong with them, not the way things ended up. Not ever."

"Well, neither did the Liskobians who tried to stop the destruction," she reasoned. "Neither did Aivy Fendono who was just a militia leader who tried to help. Neither of them were from Asmei. I was among those ranks, and they were happy to make the sacrifice."

"They made the sacrifice because there was no other good choice for them. It was not because they particularly wanted to die, or were clamouring to be released into near-oblivion. For you, there was a choice! The TARDIS had a good, viable way to save you."

Again, she sniffed, "I know. I'm very lucky."

He pulled his arm from her and used it to curl round his knees, clasping with his other hand. "Speaking of which, Martha, I need to know where we stand, because there are some things we need to talk about."

She looked at him with wide eyes. He was sure he recognised some fear within them. "What do you mean _where we stand_?"

"I mean, where we stand. How do you feel? Apart from all the soul business and the ashes."

Her face collapsed into a crunched, pained expression. "Do you mean... how do I feel about you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, boy," she sighed. "Admittedly, I've had better days."

"Tell me."

"I've already said too much," she whispered, staring out at the field, never looking sideways.

"You haven't said anything."

"Not now, not today. Before. Before all of this started."

"Well, then tell me even more. Please," he asked softly, also staring straight ahead.

"I have never felt more distant from you, frankly," she confessed. "I mean, you're sitting right here, and you're not doing or saying anything wrong, but I feel that your mind and your hearts are light years away."

"Do you miss Asmei?"

"Yeah, I do. I mean, when I was amassed with her, it was like... I could cope, you know? That fragmented part of me that wants to be with you, it found its home somewhere else, and I could feel whole. I suppose it's funny you should mention theology. I suppose the Buddhists would call it Nirvana, freedom from desire."

"But today, it's not just the usual stuff, it's an actual distance. You think I'm far away?"

"Doctor, what is this about?"

"Martha, the TARDIS used some of its stores that it collected from you in 1913 to restore your soul. What you're feeling is the residual angst from when I was buried beneath John Smith and you couldn't get to me. That's where the distant feeling comes from."

"Oh," she said, surprised. "Well, I suppose there was no choice."

"You're right," he told her. "We had used up any other stores we had of Martha-ness to track you down inside that complex, inside the platinum barriers."

"You had other stores of Martha-ness?"

"Of course. Anyone who spends any time in the TARDIS leaves at least a little imprint, and the more time one spends, the more more intense the time, the more she collects. Not on purpose, just... kind of like physical memory."

"And I spent some intense moments in the TARDIS in 1913."

"I reckoned."

"It's where I came to cry. I didn't want anyone else to see me, not there, not in that time."

"I know. And I want to help you get past it."

"Doctor..."

"Because I know that after we left 1913, I clammed up. I'd found out what I'd basically known all along, but you'd said it, with words."

"That I love you." She was never so glad to be sitting side-by-side looking at a field, and not face-to-face.

"Yes. And I wanted to address it... or at least, I didn't want to _not_ address it. But the more time that went on, the harder it got, and then it just got buried again. Then we wound up trapped in 1969 and _that_ didn't seem like the proper time to talk about it..."

"Actually that would have been the perfect time," she chuckled. "Might have made sharing a bed slightly less awkard. Even if you had nothing good to say, at least we wouldn't have had that particular elephant standing by the footboard every single night."

"That did occur to me. But I just never found the right moment, and I... I guess I'm making excuses, and I'm sorry."

"So you're going to help me sort it out by not clamming up this time. We get another chance at leaving 1913 more smoothly."

"That's right. And to that end, there's something you should know."

"What?"

"I don't know how much you remember, but I did try numerous times to get you out of there."

"I remember very vaguely seeing you and talking with you, but the specifics are lost. None of it had meaning, I guess..."

"...because your soul wasn't in it, not entirely. But Martha, one of those times, I said something to you, do you remember? I said that I had been thinking about stuff..." he trailed off.

"Sorry," she said after a few long beats. "You're going to have to give me more to go on than that."

"I said that I'd been thinking about us, about you and me, our feelings and what it all means."

"Oh. Okay."

"I thought that if anything could bring you out of the stupor you were in, it would be that."

"You were probably right. But I have no memory of you saying it."

"That's just it," he said. "I don't feel right about your not knowing about it, just because you didn't hear it."

She thought about this. It made no sense to her. "Wait... what?"

"No, what I mean is," he cleared his throat nervously. "I had realised that offering myself to you might be a good way to bring you round, but I didn't want to, you know, toy with you. So I did some soul-searching, so to speak, and decided that if it brought you round, I could and would follow it through."

"So, you... _actually_ offered yourself to me."

"Yes, and as uncomplicated as it made things when it turned out you weren't interested anymore, well... I felt uneasy about walking away from it."

"Okay..."

"I mean, I feel that I made a commitment, at least to myself, and I don't feel right about shirking it, just because it happens that you didn't hear me."

"Oh, I get it. So you're saying, you have an extra ticket to your heart, and you're wondering if I might like to use it, if I have nothing better to do." For the first time, she turned her head and looked at him.

"What? No..."

"Doctor, I'm not just going to come running because you said to yourself _well, I could be a stand-up guy and act like I like her... wouldn't be the worst thing in the world._"

"Ugh," he said, burying his head in his arms. "I'm doing this all wrong."

"No, it's fine. Now, you can rest easy knowing now that you tried to sell me your wares at a fair price, and I turned them down. Your conscience is clear." Her voice had grown hard.

"No, stop that! Martha, I'm trying to tell you that I was sincere!"

"No, you weren't!"

"Well, okay, maybe not at the time. At the time, yeah, it just seemed like a smart idea, and maybe if I had to follow through, it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. It wasn't until later that I realised that everything I'd done, everything I did to get you out of there, it was all for love. It was _later_ that that part came to me, and it's not just that I promised Secopor..."

"Wait, stop. It was all for _what?" _She was looking at him again.

But he would not look at her. He hadn't meant for that part to slip, not just yet. But it had. "You heard me."

"Say it again."

"I did it for love, Martha. Just the way you took care of me in 1913, I took care of you on New Earth. And the reason why?" Now he faced her, inquiry and nervousness all over his face.

She looked contemplative, as though she too were searching for something. "You're right. It was for love."

They locked eyes for a long moment, before the Doctor finally looked back into the field and noticed the setting sun. He chuckled. "Great. So what do we do now?"

"We could just skip over the formalities and hop into bed," she suggested, immediately revealing the joke with her eyes and a smirk. It was music to his ears. He hadn't heard her crack a joke in what felt like decades.

He matched the laughter with his eyes, and said, "I'd say the TARDIS needs at least a week's rest. She won't even have lights or running water in there, if she's to recupe properly. Shall we see what accommodations this planet has to offer two people will a whole lot of baggage to sort through?

She pressed up against his side, laced her arm through his and laid her head on his shoulder. "Okay. First, let's watch the sunset together and call it our first date."


End file.
